Hogwarts and the Bladebreakers
by Iluvbeyblade
Summary: A selection of one shots where I put most of our favourite Beyblade characters, and some of our least, into Hogwarts. Camp Nanowrimo challenge. There might even be plot at some point. Currently gen (with some crushes) and T, both subject to change.
1. Chapter 1

Hi anyone out there reading this! This is my challenge to myself for July's Camp Nanowrimo (ask me in the review if you're curious what that is!): to put the Bladebreakers et al into Hogwarts and have some fun. So hopefully I'll be producing one chapter of about 1000 words per day. (This one is slightly under, bother.)

Anyone's who's read my writing before knows that although I will always be having fun, the characters often will not.

Enjoy!

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"Are you ready, Ray?" Professor Dickenson smiled and smoothed down his silver-edged robes.

Ray nodded several more times than was necessary and stopped himself with an annoyed shake. He was full of the sort of aimless, ratchetted tension which comes with not quite knowing when you're excited or nervous. This was going to be his first trip ever to Diagon Alley. Even though his letter had arrived nearly a week ago, he saw this trip as really being his first proper step into Hogwarts. At last.

"Got your list?" He nodded again but plunged his hand into the pocket of his robes to check. Yes, the parchment was still there, folded meticulously in half. He didn't need to get everything on it, since under the Headmaster's advice he had stuck an ad up in Three Broomsticks and bought a cloak of a reasonable fit and a copies of One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi, and Magical Drafts and Potions from Hogwarts students.

(Other Hogwarts students. Like he was. Well, nearly.)

Everything else needed to be bought in Diagon Alley, and Professor Dickenson had been determined that Ray get the "full experience". He did have a copy of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find them too, but it was only the forty-eighth edition, nearly ten years out of date, and so he was tempted to get a new one. Anyway, so he was on his way to buy everything he needed and he was _nearly_ at the fireplace and the Headmaster just wouldn't stop fussing!

"I hope you have your money!"

Ray rolled his eyes. "Yes sir, it's here!" He held it up and shook it to savour the heavy jingle. He'd pretty much been doing that on and off since the professor had handed him it a day ago. It was the usual hardship fund Hogwarts provided to students who couldn't cover the costs of everything for the year themselves. It was also more money than Ray had ever seen on one person in his whole life before this, so he wasn't feeling too guilty about his new obsession. With one last good shake of the coin purse for luck, he stepped into the fireplace and took a handful of Floo Powder from the pot Professor Dickenson offered.

"That's it, my boy. Now remember, speak - "

… clearly, Ray finished his head. Out loud he drowned out the headmaster's final words by shouting as clearly as he possibly could,

"Diagon Alley!"

The Floor journey went well. H e ended up where he was supposed to, and if he had landed a bit awkwardly and bruised his elbow, well, no-one knew but him and the not that surprised stockist in Florean's ice-cream parlour. The tall witch had just said,

"Oh, hello there. Professor Dickenson's lad?" and given him a free ice-cream. So a fantastic start, all in all. He'd then spent way too long in the second-hand robes shop getting measured for the closest fit hat and work robes that they had in stock. That tape measure was felt somehow sleazy.

Halfway up Diagon Alley, heading patiently for the cauldron shop, he realised that doing things in the order they were written on his list wasn't necessarily the most sensible, and that he should probably have checked a map. Oh well.

An hour later, he arrived, puffing and panting, at Ollivander's. His arms were leaden from lugging around his cauldron stuffed full of second-hand textbooks, and he still couldn't decide between getting a cat or getting one of the owls with the cute tufty ears, but this was where he had most wanted to come.

A _wand_.

Twitching again with nervous tension, he pushed open the door.

"Good afternoon, Mr Kon. Professor Dickenson told me to expect you today."

The first thought Ray had when he took wand number one from Olivander's hand was – this isn't a proper wand. It was too smooth, polished and perfect. Thirteen inches of glossy alder wood surrounding a unicorn hair core. Nothing like Master Tao's wands back home: uneven strips of whichever local trees had the most Bowtruckles on that year (guelder-rose when he'd left) bound around whatever object with magical associations that the would-be wielder wished.

He spun it around his fingers mindlessly as he remembered home. The wand, perhaps feeling neglcted, let out an ominous creak. Olivander snatched it away and replaced it with another.

"Ten inches, fir and unicorn hair."

Ray gave it a swish. It vibrated gently in his hand. He looked hopefully up at Olivander, who frowned and shook his head.

"Almost, Mr Kon. Here."

This was the same wand but with dragon heartsring. It lay utterly inert.

"Fine," Olivander muttered to himself, "definitely the correct core …"

The next wand was chestnut and unicorn hair. Again that one reacted a little, but not quite enough for Olivander. He got up and, muttering to himself, went to the next shelf over, and handed the resultant wand to Ray without a word.

The second Ray's hand closed around it, he knew this was the one. Adrenalin raced through him and he barely noticed the sparks shooting out of its tip. Master Tao had spoken of this, the bond that was forged when the perfect wand and wizard met.

(Ray thought, uncharitably, that it was probably easier to make perfect wands with Olivander's tools and know-how than with Master Tao's.)

"Well, well. Ten inch black walnut, rigid, with a unicorn hair core. Well, well." He regarded Ray for several uncomfortable seconds, then waved him out of the shop. "Trust yourself, Mr Kon," he said as Ray opened the door, so softly that at first Ray thought he was hearing things. "Trust your judgement most ardently."

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All opinions very welcome!

xIlbx

PS: google pottermore wand woods and check out Ray's choice. Predict the others'!


	2. Chapter 2

Hi all! Thank you very much to the 12 people who have read this so far! I hope you're enjoying it.

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So many things about Hilary's childhood only made sense when she happened across a stray sentence about Muggle Repelling Charms halfway through her second year. Accidental magic, yes, she had put that in its mental place pretty quickly: the fact that any smudges in her primary school writing books often disappeared; the way that her bedroom was always just the right temperature at night even when everyone else's wasn't. That all made sense immediately.

But it took her reading that one little sentence to suddenly realise the rest of it too. To go on a frenzy of research, find maps, cross-reference everything.

She had lived her whole life right on the edge of a wood where a lot of magical creatures lived. Bowtruckles, Jobberknolls, Knarls. A few others which were temporarily stored there before being moved to somewhere more suitable. The whole place had been riddled with Muggle Repelling Charms.

So when as a little girl, she had laughed and pointed at birds that no-one could see, that no-one wanted to see, or flown into a tantrum about how that wasn't a hedgehog because it was _different_ , people had only laughed once. Only thought it was cute once. The Repelling element of the charm was very strong, and her childish persistence meant that her family quickly became bad-tempered with her. Stop talking about that nonsense, Hilary. Stop looking over there, Hilary. Don't make up silly stories, there aren't any tiny grey men in our garden. Hilary, if I catch you down the bottom of the garden again you'll get a right hiding, do you understand?

(She suspected, in hindsight, after yet more reading, that her parents must have had a few Memory Charms cast on them in the past too, and that the fogginess of the memories she was trying to talk about made them even more irritated.)

Eventually, after enough smacked hands, shouts and cold shoulders, her young brain had understood, ok, she didn't talk about those things. The wood was Not to be Named. So she stopped. For a brief period of time all was well. Then gnomes appeared in the school playground, and that nearly broke her.

These were home things. Wood things. Why were they here? Even though she knew, with a cold sinking feeling, that it wouldn't work, she still tried to ask a playground supervisor, "Can you see the weird thing over there?" She watched with the cold feeling twisting into a knot as the supervisor's eyes did the hatefully familiar flicker, where they saw but instantly looked away again with nothing registering.

"I can't see anything, sweetie. What is it?" She hated that reaction. That sugary tone which meant "Aw, she's playing an imaginary game!" It was a bit better than being accused of lying for attention, but not much better.

From that day on, she made a promise to try not to see those things again. To make her eyes skate over them like everyone else's did. The second bit of that took a lot longer to do than the first, but because she was very clever and very, very stubborn, she managed it. By the time she was eleven, when her letter arrived, she was seeing only the tiniest glimpse of gnomes and similar creatures before her mind blanked it out.

The Muggle liason sent to her family didn't notice. She asked about the accidental magic, and that was ok to speak about, but the cute little blue birds and ugly little grey figures sat like a stone in her throat until she swallowed it down, hid it again, covered it over with the excitement of discovering that she was _magical_. So no-one knew, and no-one expected the problems it would cause.

Like not buying any of her school supplies, because they couldn't find the Leaky Cauldron. She sort of knew where it was, kept catching glimpses out of the corner of her eye, but she'd trained herself too well and she couldn't see any more than that, and the thought of telling her parents even that made her feel sick. She ended up sending a secret, panicked letter to the address the Muggle liason had given her, but even in that she couldn't quite explain the problem. Being four seems like a long time ago when you're eleven, especially when all you've heard for the interveneing seven years is that you are lying or imagining things. So the letter was garbled and tear-stained and largely just consisted of: "I can't do it, please help."

Five owls arrived at her bedroom window the following evening.

Platform nine and three-quarters wasn't an issue. They'd been given clear instructions – Hilary and her parents were alike there, they loved clear instructions. And lists. (And, of course, twelve year-old Hilary thought, the platform wasn't charmed to Repel. It didn't need to be, there were Ministry officials on standby, and no sensible Muggle would randomly run at a wall.)

Hogwarts, though. That was an issue. A horrible, painful issue. As her carriage had approached the castle, her brain had tried its usual avoidance "I can't see it if I'm not looking at it" methods, but Hogwarts was _too big_. She couldn't look somewhere else. It was everywhere – because the Repelling Charm stretched to the full extent of its grounds, of course. She had spent the entire journey staring fixedly at the floor of the carriage. Her head pounded.

Then she had got out of the carriage and there had been no more barriers: the forbidden and the unseeable was everywhere around her, even the ground, and she couldn't avoid it, she couldn't _not see it_.

She tried to trudge along behind Hagrid with the other first years, but her hands were numb and she couldn't breathe and she didn't know whether to scream or cry or be sick and every movement around her looked like an aimed smack, and every voice was aiming its displeasure at her and

Thankfully at that point she'd passed out. When she woke up, she could just about cope, but she still couldn't look directly at anything for a few days. The mediwitch was confused. She'd never known of someone training themselves to see like a Muggle before.

How ironic, then, that she had the wand of a Seer.

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Hopefully I'll flesh this out into something less summary-like if I make this into a proper full-length fic after July, which I intend to do.

All opinions welcome!

xIlbx


	3. Chapter 3

This chapter suffers from all the problems of rushed challenges lol. Never mind, I will do a few more characters tomorrow and expand on the characters arcs touched on in later chapters.

Thank you to everyone who's been reading so far!

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"Chou, Lee!"

Although Lee wasn't the first to be called, the chatter dipped in the Great Hall as he stomped forwards with determination, eyeing the Hat like it might attack him at any second. His height and fuzzy facial hair made him stand out a bit in the usual parade of tiny terrified firsties. He jammed the Hat onto his head and glared at anyone in his view field for several seconds before tipping the Hat forwards until it covered his eyes. Gryffindor or Slytherin was the whispered assumption. Only Dunga, a fourth-year Hufflepuff who had also been judged like that due to his "intimidating appearance", passed three Sickles up to the top of his table with a muttered "He's a Puff." The sixth-year acting as bookmaker raised his eyebrows and scribbled down odds of 3 to 1 against.

The Hat was taking forever. Two minutes ticked by, then three. The muttering grew louder. People started altering their bets based entirely on what they imagined the hat was saying. In the line of first years, Mariah started to whisper that she wished it would make its mind up – "is this normal?", and Ray's stomach twisted with all of the complicated feelings that seeing the two of them again had brought on.

The Hat's brim opened. Expectant silence fell. "Hufflepuff!" it bellowed. Conversation in the hall rose to such a pitch that Mr Dickenson had to get to his feet and good-naturedly wave everyone into quiet again. Dunga smiled and collected his winnings. Mariah and Ray stayed quiet and tense, with opposite thoughts in their minds.

"Chou, Mariah!"

Mariah's face went hot as she heard at least four different students ask each other incredulously, "Wait, are they _twins_?" She bit her tongue to stop herself yelling at them. They didn't know the whole weird situation. Her teeth sank into her lip even harder as she actively did not look at Ray. She had known exactly where he was by some sort of skin-prickling sense since she'd first spotted him on the train. Instead she looked at Lee, who was just settling on the very edge of the Hufflepuff table and looking uncomfortable. He gave her a strained smile when she caught his eye. She tried to return it as she sat on the stool.

She didn't know that much about the Houses, she thought as she put on the Hat. She supposed that probably she would end up with Lee and they would learn everything together.

 _Not necessarily_ , said a voice in her ear. She nearly leapt out of her seat and squeaked an incoherent sound. _I'm the Hat, stop panicking_ , it said peevishly, responding to her thoughts rather than her voice. _Are you going to stay still?_ She nodded. _Very good. Now, where was I? Oh yes – I don't think you're a Hufflepuff at all. I think you're a -_

She heard the word in her head before the Hat had said out loud, and she clutched the brim as hard as she could and thought, _Why?_ at it in a wail.

 _Oh, don't be a crybaby, I had you pegged as better than that_. Ooh, that stung her pride. She blinked back tears and took a deep breath. _Well done. You shouldn't be upset; I can't count how many times I've put siblings in different Houses. It'll be good for you_.

 _But_ could _I be a Hufflepuff?_ she insisted. The Hat sighed.

 _You could be anything. Anyone could be anything. That's the point. But you're best suited to …_ She sensed it getting ready to shout again. This time she let it. Deep down she was a little bit excited by the challenge.

"Gryffindor!"

:::

As if it were proving a point, the Hat sorted the Fernandez twins in exactly the same manner: Julia to Gryffindor and Raul to Hufflepuff.

:::

"Granger, Tyson!"

Tyson jumped. He'd kind of stopped concentrating. He was more nervous walking up to the Hat than he thought he would be. He'd thought that he was a shoe-in for Gryffindor, following every boy in his family so far, but the Hat was making unexpected choices today. Oh well, he figured that the only other place he might go was Hufflepuff, and that wasn't so bad.

The Hat barely touched his head before it shouted "Gryffindor!" Tyson took it off and gave it a slightly bemused grin. Cool. All ok, then. He hurried over to the clapping Gryffindor table. Was the Hat back to normal now?

"Hiwatari, Kai!"

The money poured in for Slytherin. Anyone who had been paying attention to the waiting first-years had spotted that Kai had spent the entire time with his eyes shut and arms folded, looking the picture of disdain for the whole process. Despite the quality and cost of his robes and hat, he somehow managed to make them look a mess. Lots of them recognised the infamous Dark family name – a lot of the Slytherins were in fact distantly related to the small rebellious boy currently sauntering towards the Hat as if it meant nothing at all. So, Slytherin. Possibly Ravenclaw if he was clever.

The time stretched. And stretched. And stretched. Four minutes had ticked by, and the Hall was alternating between furious whispers and expectant silence – the teacher's bench included. Professor Dickenson was clutching his cane so tightly that his knuckles were white.

Five minutes. A Hatstall, officially.

Finally, just as the students were getting overly restive and several of the teachers were shooting Professor Dickenson "can't you _do_ something?!" glances, the Hat's brim opened.

In a subdued voice, the Hat announced, "Gryffindor!"

Professor Dickenson didn't regain control of the uproar for several minutes. In the tumuult, remarkably few people looked twice at Kai, trudging to the whispering, staring Gryffindor table. Only Tyson, who wriggled aside to make a space and patted the bench next to him persistently until Kai sat down, saw the teethmarks in his lower lip and the way that he shook his hands out as if they'd been clenched into fists that whole time.

"Kon, Ray!"

The only thought in Ray's head as he walked towards the stool was _Not Hufflepuff._ (Not Lee.) Anywhere but that. Literally anywhere. He didn't think he'd make a good Ravenclaw, but he'd take it. He'd even accept Slytherin, which he'd researched enough to know was seen as the evil House. Nobody could hate him as much as Lee did right now.

 _So, not Hufflepuff then?_ the Hat asked. It sounded amused. Ray couldn't imagine anything funny about this situation. _Scared, are we?_

 _I'm not scared!_ It was a hollow statement but Ray thought it angrily, because that was also true. He was scared but also angry, and frustrated that Lee couldn't be happy that Ray had gone out and improved himself. How dare he try and screw this up?

 _As you wish, Mr Not-Scared, better be …_ "Gryffindor!"

"Saien, Kenny!"

Tyson clapped more loudly than the rest of his flagging table mates. He'd liked talking to Kenny on the train. He'd seemed nice. He'd also seemed like a born Ravenclaw, like the redheaded girl earlier whose hair hadn't even made contact with the Hat before it announced Ravenclaw. So it was with surprise that Tyson waited, and waited, and waited. Not as long as Lee, nowhere near as long as Kai, but it still took a while before the Hat called, "Gryffindor!" No-one else knew Kenny at all so no-one was surprised, but Tyson felt his mouth drop open. He regarded the tiny, fumbling boy with new respect and tried to see the hidden daring and bravery that the Hat had clearly spotted. "Hey, Kenny!" He waved frantically, but only as Kenny came right up to the table did they all simultaneously realise that he would have to sit next to Kai.

"Um …" Kenny froze on the spot, still clutching his crumpled pointy hat. The moment extended into hair-raising awkwardness. In the end, Kai cracked open one eye and said, "I'm not going to eat you."

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All opinions welcome!

xIlbx


	4. Chapter 4

Oh dear, already got n o real idea of my word count, I hate not having Word! Anyway, have about 600/700 words of Max and Hilary getting Sorted!

Thanks to everyone who is reading!

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"Tate, Max!

Max was, by and large, about as clueless as Lee and Mariah had been about the Houses. His dad had been a Hufflepuff, but Max knew more about the North American school Ilvermorny than about Hogwarts. His mom had been a Horned Serpent, and the plain black Hogwarts robes looked very drab compared to the brightly coloured blue and cranberry robes he had seen his mom wearing in pictures.

He put the Hat on. Apparently it spoke to you?

 _Hi?_

 _Greetings, young Tate_. He shivered, disliking the way that the Hat's voice echoed strangely inside his head.

 _Hi_ , he said again. Nervous, he added hurriedly, _How are you?_

 _I am well_. Now the Hat sounded amused. Was that good? _Or as well as I may expect to be_.

Oh great, riddles.

Tell me, Mr Tate. What do you know of the Houses Griffyndor and Hufflepuff?

Oh, come on! No-one had said there would be a test!

 _Um …_ He thought as fast as he could, scraping up what few memories he had of the Hat's song and the stories Dad had told him. _Gryffindrs are brave, and … Hufflepuffs are friendly and hard-working?_

More amused feeling in his head. _Good enough. Which one would you rather be?_ When Max stayed silent, mind whirring uselessly, the Hat went on: _All the Houses are admirable in their own ways, of course, but I think you would do best in either of those two. Whichever choice you make will be the correct one_.

 _Well, that's a relief, I guess?_ Max bit his lip and tried to think clearly and logically, like Mom always told him to. _I think that being friendly is something you can do anywhere. Same with hard-working, though I suppose it's easier if everyone around you is the same … still, I think that it would be cool to be with a load of people who are encouraged to be brave._

Mom was always telling him to be more confident and to stand up for himself, after all.

As you wish.

"Gryffindor!"

"Tatibana, Hilary!"

She was almost the last student in the line. Although she was feeling nervous, it wasn't like most of the other students in the line before her – because they didn't know what to expect, or because they were worried about ending up in a specific House. Oh no. She had bought far more books than had been on the reading list, and had researched everything she could possibly find about Hogwarts. That had been a lot. So not only did she know the names and attributes of the four Houses, but she knew where the previous five hundred years worth of headmasters and ministers for Magic had been sorted into, and the opinions of decades worth of _Daily Prophet_ political columnists.

Ha! She wasn't the unprepared Muggleborn everyone thought! Grinning to herself, she settled the Hat comfortably on her head.

She knew all about the Hat's tendency towards odd choices – had seen it make a few just now – but all the books stressed that the Hat was always right in the end, in the important and defining moments of a witch or wizard's life. So even though she had definitely assumed that she would be a Ravenclaw, she wasn't immediately outraged when the Hat suggested,

 _How about Gryffindor?_

 _Do you really think so?_ Brave wasn't an adjective she usually heard about herself. She got called hot-headed and stubborn quite a bit though ...

 _Oh, you'll find plenty of those with … "_ Gryffindor! _"_ The Hat actually chuckled. It felt like leaves in her head.

 _I didn't say I wanted …_ Hilary trailed off and sighed. Fine. She'd be a Gryffindor. She'd be the smartest and best Gryffindor _ever_!

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All opinions welcome!

xIlbx


	5. Chapter 5

Only a short thing today because I FAIL. This scene is going to stretch out for at least one more chapter.

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The second year Gryffindors bunched together nervously. Well, most of them anyway. Kai was hanging back as usual.

They were in their Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, but not for that lesson. The usual chairs and desks had been pushed to the outside, and in the otherwise empty middle was an unfamiliar face. He was clad in a voluminous cloak which made him look shapeless. Instead of a pointed hat, he had a deep hood which partially hid his eyes.

"Come on, now, don't be shy!" Professor Balcov's smile was the only bit of his face Hilary could see, and she thought that it had far too many teeth. Something about him made a chill start trickling slowly down her back. Actually, on second thoughts;

"Mariah, do we even call him 'Professor'?" she asked in a whisper, gathering her cloak a bit more tightly around her. Mariah gave her what was probably supposed to be a cool sarcastic look, but too much of the whites of her eyes were showing for that façade to work.

"Why should I know?" Mariah asked. Her voice shot up on "I" and both of them froze and checked that Balcov was still occupied talking to their head of House before relaxing slightly.

"Well, _you_ were the one who heard those seventh-years saying how he was coming back to do Dickenson a favour."

" _Ssh_!," Mathilda hissed, patting both the girls' shoulders frantically. They snapped their attention back to the front of the room, where Boris had just turned to face them.

"Come forwards, come forwards!" He beckoned them in with wide, expansive sweeps of his arms. Unsuprisingly, Tyson and Julia took the first hesitant steps, leading the rest of them inside the circle. "Good morning students. My name is Professor Balcov - "

There's one question answered, Hilary thought.

" - and I'm here to run the duelling club. For the first time, your Headmaster has decided to let second and third years participate as well, an honour previously gifted only to fourth years and above."

Hilary heard Ray and Mariah scoff and mutter " _honour._.." at exactly the same time in exactly the same tone of voice. She could tell without looking that Tyson had just rolled his eyes and shuffled his feet. Usually their misbehaviour in class really annoyed her – didn't they know that everything they learnt was _important_? - but this time even she had to admit that the teacher was laying it on a bit thick.

"Is this a compulsory class?" Kai asked. Everyone jumped slightly and stared at him; it was so rare for him to voluntarily ask a vaguely sensible sounding question in class. And it was a good question, Hilary thought: they were here instead of their second hour of Herbology, so was this a permanent timetable change? Where would they shift the second period of Herbology?

Balcov stared at Kai for several seconds. There was no expression on his face and the stare didn't look different from the usual nonplussed look teachers gave Kai, but instead of ignoring the stare like he usually did, Kai raised his head and returned it in silence. That went on for just long enough to make everyone start feeling uncomfortable, before Boris smiled an even faker smile than before and said:

"Not at all. After this introductory ses - "

"Right, then." Kai turned on his heel and started walking towards the classroom door. Hilary sighed. Typical Kai. She heard Ray badly stifle a snicker, and heard a sound that she would almost have bet on being Tyson and Max quietly high-fiveing. She heard Mariah mutter, "Oh, _really._.." And watched Julia's shoulders rise and floor in a "his loss" shrug and Mathilda's eyes widen. She never did expect Kai to be quite as careless of rules as he was.

And then all of their reactions ground to a halt as Boris raised his voice so that Kai couldn't pretend not to hear it and said calmly,

"That's a pity, Kai. I think you'd find it instructive."

Kai turned around. His eyes were narrowed, and he radiated suspicion in a way that Hilary hadn't seen on him since the first half of last year where everyone thought he was a Slytherin spy who had somehow tricked the Hat. And no wonder. How had Balcov known Kai's name?

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All opinions welcome!

xIlbx


	6. Chapter 6

Guess who's behind?

ME.

I swear I'll get back on top of my word count tomorrow evening, I swear. This is a very unfinished fragment.

* * *

Kai rejoined the back of the group. Hilary chanced a quick look at him, before Balkov got going with the lesson, and saw that he was frowning in a way she'd only ever seen him do with difficult homework.

"Now that we're all together, let's get started. There are …" Balkov did a quick head count, "nine of you. Pair up, boy and girl, and the leftover person can help me demonstrate the spell you'll be using."

Hilary saw Balkov look at Kai when he said "the leftover person" and it sent another chill down her spine. She sent a hard urgent glare in the direction of her dormitory-mates, who were all closer to Kai than she was, but was relieved to see that Julia had already claimed Kai, stepping as close as Kai's mile-wide personal space allowed. They had a usual pattern for House boy-girl groups and Hilary often went with Kai, but she had a completely irrational feeling that Kai being on his own for more than ten seconds would have resulted in Balkov deeming him "leftover" and up for grabs.

The rest of them fell into familiar pairs: Ray and Mariah, Kenny and Mathilda … Tyson and Hilary took two steps towards each other then almost simultaneously realised that they were abandoning Max. He waved off their concerned expressions with a typically easy-going grin and mouthed, "I'll be fine!", but the fact that he already had his wand out as he walked up to Balkov made it clear he felt as uncomfortable as the rest of them.

"So you're the leftover."

"Sure am." Max put on his biggest, prettiest for-the-teacher smile. Balkov's expression as he looked down at Max was too complicated for Hilary to figure out, but she didn't like it.

"You sure?" Apparently, neither did Kai. His voice was too loud in the tense room.

"Yup!" Max's voice was casual but the look he sent Kai over all their heads was fierce and said "Back off," just as clearly as words would have. To make his point even further, he flipped his wand in his hand until it was pointing upwards (a third year Ravenclaw Muggle-born had told her that although that generally just meant "about to use my wand", it could have the same connotations as cocking a gun, or raising your fists) and said, "Ready when you are, sir!"

"Very well." Balkov walked to the middle of the room, and gestured Max to stand about two arms lengths away from him. "The first spell I will teach you is the Disarmament Charm. As you might think, if this spell is cast successfully and makes contact with your opponent then it forces their wand out of their hand."

"It also works on anything they're holding, not just wands." Professor Dickenson pointed this out from the far side of the classroom, where he was quietly observing. Hilary had long since given up trying to understand the Headmaster's decisions, but it was very unusual that he should sit in on a lesson like this. "I used it yesterday to stop Professor Sprout taking the last bit of bacon."

The usual beat of baffled silence followed this titbit.

"Indeed." Balkov gathered himself again – visibly, he shuffled his cloak. "The incantation for this spell is _Expelliarmus_. Say it after me, hands off your wands."

They fumbled their way through the unfamiliar word. He made them chant it until he was satisfied. Or possibly just bored. "That will do." Next he showed them the wand motion, and they copied it a few times. "Now, you might have noticed the two weaknesses of this spell I mentioned earlier – because it seems very useful, doesn't it? Seems like you would always win. Who knows what I'm talking about?"

Hilary knew, of course she did, but she'd eventually learnt in first year to sometimes take a step back. She looked around. Suprisingly everyone (apart from Kai) had their hand up. Being scary was good for Balkov's participation levels, apparently …

Mathilda got picked. She went pink. "You might not cast it successfully." Like Hilary, she was prone to repeating teachers' exact phrases.

Balkov nodded. "Yes. Or even if you did cast it sucessfully, it might be very weak and so only cause the wand to slip. Easily caught again." He pointed sharply at Tyson.

"You can mis-aim it. Or dodge it." There was a sharp, intent look in Tyson's eyes that Hilary had only really seen before in Quidditch.

"As with many spells, yes. The fastest person in a duel doesn't always win, but they do have a better chance."

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All opinions welcome

xIlbx

(sorry if there's still a weird blank space down here, idk what ffnet formatting is on today)


	7. Chapter 7

Still behind, so behind. Thanks to the 10 visitors! :D I'm happy people are reading even if not reviewing.

I liked the end of this chapter more than the beginning. Hmm, I might lead on from it again next chapter, get the boys' PoV.

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Balkov turned to Max. "If you wouldn't mind?"

Max barely had time to look bewildered before Balkov had said " _Expelliarmus_!" and Disarmed him. Balkov wordlessly made Max's wand, which had been on a trajectory to about four feet away, land in Balkov's hand.

He twiddled the wand and looked at it closely. Hilary was struck by his sudden resemblance to Ollivander, except that his lip was curled with something that could have been distaste. "Ah, rowan and unicorn. It suits you." He threw the wand back. Max caught it, and tried to surreptiously wipe it. Hilary winced in sympathy.

"There's one more piece of theory I'd like you to know before you can start practising on each other for the rest of the hour. When you Disarm somebody, there is a chance that their wand will switch allegiance to you."

Stunned silence greeted that remark. Hilary found herself gripping her wand tightly. Suddenly she didn't want to duel any more.

"It doesn't tend to happen in duels, certainly not your usual school duel, because your wand knows when it is being used in earnest, and it knows when it has been won in earnest. Certain wands switch with more or less ease than others. But as a general rule, if you genuinely defeat another wizard in combat, his wand will work well for you – better than other wands you may have borrowed in the past."

With that, Balkov stepped back and gestured for them to start practising. Hilary faced Tyson, and could tell from his face that he was almost as uneasy as she was.

For the rest of the hour, they took turns trying to Disarm each other. Balkov didn't say a single word more, but his mere precsence kept them all grimly practising when they actually really wanted to talk.

Predictably, Kai managed to Disarm Julia about fifteen minutes in, but as if to put some of the sting back in for him Balkov pointed out that Julia had been nearly half a second faster to point her wand accurately at Kai, so if she could have made the spell happen she would have Disarmed him first.

Shortly afterwards, Ray and Mariah used the spell simultaneously and knocked themselves backwards onto their bottoms without any Disarming at all. That caused a lot of snickering, but again Balkov's presnce stopped any good joking around.

Kenny and Mathilda had made exactly no progress at all, and were both bright pink in the face. They both hated semi-public things like this. It was different in a normal classroom experience, which they generally shared with another House so there were more people. More voices shouting, fruitlessly or otherwise. Kenny was also suffering from the relatively non-academic method with which they had just been taught: he dealt best with new spells when given the theory the week before, to pick it apart and understand _why_ the wand had to be moved like that, _why_ the emphasis had to be on the third syllable, etc.

Professor Dickenson had wandered over to Max and been a practise dummy for a few unsuccessful Disarmaments, but now they were just talking.

Hilary didn't expect much of herself, given that her heart was most definitely not in it – she didn't want to steal Tyson's wand! - but much to her surprise with about seven minutes to go her weak, colourless spell hit Tyson and jolted his wand onto the floor. Tyson shouted the incantation and her wand too fell out of her hand, although she was sure that it was just because she was distracted.

Neither of them were pleased or proud like they were when they managaed spells in other lessons. Hilary scooped up her wand and stuffed it into an inside pocket of her cloak. Some absurd idea about it being able to hear her heartbeat and recognise her floated through her brain. Tyson was slightly more rational, quite the feat for him, but his knuckles were white on his wand.

As they headed to the Great Hall for dinner, Mariah said in a half-annoyed, half scared whisper, "That was _weird_." Hilary agreed fervently and Mathilda complained that she never liked that sort of stuff anyway, but Julia just laughed and said,

"Well, I thought it was ok. I'm sure Cloak-Man's bark is worse than his bite."

Mariah rolled her eyes. "You're just pleased he said you were faster than Kai."

Julia squared her shoulders. "Yeah, I _am_ pleased! I think I could be good at duelling, you know?" This was the first time that they had heard Julia say that she wanted to do well in a subject, rather than her usual aggressively cheerful acceptance of however she was doing at the time. Even though it wasn't a school subject, it was still quite an event.

"Yeah, Julia, I definitely think you could be really good; didn't he say that being fast and good at dodging were two very important duelling skills?" Hilary elbowed Mariah hard in the side to get her to realise the plan and agree.

"He definitely said that," Mariah offered, stamping silently on Hilary's foot in return.

"Being faster than Kai is impressive," Mathilda said, catching on a little late but gamely joining in. They were all fed up of how Julia didn't care about school, which ... ok, actually they were all still sore about getting stressed and worried about first year exams while Julia sat on her bed and threw spoilt pieces of parchment at them while telling them they were being silly.

Maybe they were being bad friends for deliberately trying to drive her into something that she could get stressed about too, but never mind that for now.

Late that night, when they were all changed into nightwear and the lights were out and everybody was in bed apart from Mariah who was looking for a lost quill, Mathilda said, quietly, what they'd all thought all evening:

"Do you reckon the teachers know about Kai 'borrowing' people's wands, then? Do you reckon that's why we were the first House to get that lesson?"

Mariah grumbled, "Probably", from half underneath her bed. "Don't sugar-coat it, Maddy, call it stealing."

"He hasn't done it this year, though," Julia pointed out.

A thought popped into Hilary's head and chilled her all over and spilt from her mouth even though she literally clenched her jaw shut to resist the compulsion: "Yeah, but now he knows how to make the wands _his_."

Mariah must have tried to whip her head up to stare at Hilary, because there was a loud bang and some creative swearing for a twelve year-old.

"Thanks for that, Hil," Julia muttered. "Oh well. Guess I'd better get good at duelling fast, hey?"

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All opinions welcome!

xIlbx


	8. Chapter 8

It was days like these, Hilary mused as she fastened her cloak, that really highlighted how different the members of the Gryffindor girls' dormintory were. They had been around each other for two weeks now, which was long enough for them to start feeling familiar, and then this fantastically dramatic school threw them for another loop.

This time, it was flying lessons. On broomsticks.

Hilary, a Muggleborn, had burst out into giggles when they had first been told that. She wasn't sure how she'd missed it in her extensive pre-reading, but then again she hadn't been looking for transportation. Broomsticks! It was almost as bad as the pointed black hats. What next, she had wheezed through giggles, a lesson on how to make your own warts?

Julia had understood that reference. She had no idea of her ancestry, since she and her brother had been abandoned as infants, but they had been found and brought up by a travelling showman family. When the twins had started making odd things happen around them, the pragmatic family had simply tried to work it into acts. Sometimes that had even worked. Their Hogwarts letters had come as a surprise (because what and where on earth was Hogwarts?) but not as a shock, because magic was accepted as something that was most probably true but just not seen very often. Her response to the flying lessons had been to start a long and eventually heated conversation with her brother over how useful that would have been when they were helping erect rides. Back in the dorm, she had debated with Hilary over whether this meant that anything could be ridden. They'd got quite excited over the idea of flying armchairs.

Mariah had instead been excited at the chance to learn how to ride properly, since broomsticks were a rare and much suspected object at home. She came from a tiny, closed-off wizarding community deep in the rural countryside. A cluster of several seventh-century wizarding houses and gardens hidden along the oldest street in a Muggle town. The community only occassionaly used the Muggle services they lived alongside, and scorned Hogwarts or any involvement with the magical government at all. Broomsticks were seen as a risky method of transportation because if the rider didn't reguarly cast a Disillusionment Charm upon both themselves and the broom they were exceedingly likely to be spotted by Muggles. And being spotted by Muggles meant the Ministry getting involved, which was practically considered a sin.

Mathilda, a pureblood with horrible strict and ideological parents, knew quite a lot about broom riding, along with Floo Powder and Portkeys, and barely even noticed the discomfort of Side-Along Apparation anymore. This was because her family was so hardline anti-Muggle that they refused to use Muggle transport, even the magically adapted ones like Ministry cars – and the Hogwarts train. At the start of the year two weeks ago she had appeared in Madam Rosemerta's fireplace and started the trudge up to the lake to meet the other first years. Ray had spotted her and waited for ten minutes for her to catch up (they were on different points of a very high hill). She had been so very glad of that, since she had had nightmares for weeks about everybody staring at her as she reached them, or about her missing the boats and the carriages and being stranded, and not being on her own had been such an incredible relief. Two weeks later, she still blushed and tripped over whenever Ray smiled at her. So yes, she knew how to fly, although it wasn't her favourite activity. For ancestral reasons her family supported Poland in the Quidditch World Cup, or whoever knocked Russia out of the competition that year, but on a more local level she had probably heard her father read every single newspaper article where the Falmouth Falcons featured since she was old enough to recognise what she was hearing. So she, like Mariah, was excited about the idea of being taught how to ride properly .Everyone knew, after all, that established broomstick riders often had awful habits. (She did, however, get very sulky when remembering that she couldn't have her own broom from home).

It turned out that the Gryffindors had flying lesson with the Hufflepuffs. Not that Hilary particuarly noticed the Hufflepuffs to be honest, they were all just a mass of new faces still.

They were all lined up next to a broom. Hilary still couldn't help but fight the urge to giggle a bit whenever she looked at it, or at Julia. It was just … a broom. It looked simultaneously so normal and so much like every cartoon witch she had ever seen that despite all the evidence to the contrary she had trouble imagining it flying at all.

Mathilda was still muttering away, like she'd been doing since the second she saw the brooms. Apparently these were very substandard brooms.

" _Ssh_ already!" Mariah hissed as the teacher started speaking, but with such incredible vemon that Hilary felt certain Mathilda's disdain had hit a nerve or two.

Following directions from the weirdly hawklike teacher, they stood to the left of their brooms, held their hands out and shouted, "Up!"

The brooms belonging to Kai, Tyson, Mathilda and two Hufflepuffs jumped up at the first call.

"You five had flown a lot before, haven't you?" They all nodded. "No need to worry, class, it's all about practise and authority!"

Authority? Hilary thought disbelievingly. If it was about authority Mathilda's broom should never have left the _ground_. Then she felt bad for thinking that. She had a quick look around and saw to her dismay that most people were holding brooms, and that those who weren't, such as Julia, were scowling and red in the face or apathetic and not trying, and just generally losing patience fast. She hadn't even really tried yet. Too distracted by being mean, she told herself sternly. Now.

"Up!" To her delighted surprise, the broom soared straight up into her waiting hand. She squeezed it as instructed then mounted. Oh dear, she thought to herself just before the command to try and kick off the ground one at a time, I hope I don't get splinters. In hindsight, today had not been a good day to wear a skirt under her robes ...


	9. Chapter 9

In my defence at this pathetic snippet, I was at a first aid duty from 7am to 5pm. It's not a great defence, though.

SO BEHIND.

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Feeling distinctly uncertain, Hilary pushed gently at the muddy grass with her tiptoes. She rose a few inches then sank down again, bouncing twice.

"Oh wow!" She tried to catch Mariah's eye, to share the sudden feeling of gleeful excitement that her tiny hop had unexpectedly caused. "Did you see that?!"

Mariah was floating about a foot above the ground with a look of utmost concentration on her face. After a long second during which Hilary's excitement began to wither at being ignored, Mariah gave her a distracted grin, nodded, and then carefully leaned forwards so that she started flying forwards absolutely parallel to the ground, inching along at a snail's pace. Watching her cautious progress made the fire of excitement in Hilary's stomach flicker even lower. She started to lean forwards like Mariah, carefully, cautiously. But then:

"Come on, you slowpokes!" Tyson shouted as he zoomed far above them and the teacher gave him a warning about speed and height rules that Hilary, for once, hadn't listened to the first time because part of her had never believed that she would be able to fly.

Well, she _could_. She _would_. With a surge of adrenaline that made her fingers tingle, she kicked off the ground as hard as she could. The broom lurched upwards at surprising speed. She let out an embarrassing loud yelp and instinctively crouched forwards.

Unfrtunately this was exactly the wrong thing to do, since it made the broom speed up. She could hear people shouting at her, but couldn't hear their words over the sound of wind rushing in her ears. All that she could think was "Don't look down!" and "Don't let go!".

Suddenly the broom's frantic upward trajectory halted, so smoothly that Hilary only noticed when the world went quiet again. She could hear Julia yelling at Tyson, blaming him, but she didn't pay it much attention. Cautiously she opened eyes that she didn't remember closing. The teacher was hovering in front of her, wand out. The sight of a teacher when she had so clearly misbehaved sent a stab of fright and horror into Hilary's stomach which was far worse than her reaction to realising she was hurtling uncontrollably into the sky. She was _in trouble_.

But after a couple of blinks, dislodging wind-irritated tears, she could see that the teacher looked more amused than anything else.

"Do you want to continue?" she asked.

Hilary took stock of herself. She was cold and shaky and her stomach hurt from shock and she wasn't sure that her legs could actually handle solid ground right now … but the idea that she was flying still thrilled her. Carefully, one by one, she unlocked her hands from around the broom and flexed them until the stiffness went away.

"Yes, I do."

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All opinions welcome!

xIlbx


	10. Chapter 10

me: OMG IM GOING TO FINISH THIS EARLY AND GET TO BED EARLY

brain: no

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"Are you excited about your first day at Hogwarts, Miss Mathilda?"

Mathilda pushed her scrambled eggs around her plate with her fork.

"Yes," she said, just to make Jez, the house elf who had helped raise her since birth, take that worried look off her tiny wrinkled face.

In truth, she was much more nervous than she was excited. Going away to Hogwarts was a very big event. When she was younger she had begged her parents to let her go now, why couldn't she go _now_ , and get her wand and learn the spells her parents used, and come home with just as many funny stories as they had from their days?

But over the past couple of months, ever since her letter had arrived confirming her registration at Hogwarts, she had been thinking about Hogwarts more. Half a sheaf of parchment in her room was covered in neat lists of pros and cons. She kept hiding it whenever her parents approached ( she'd sworn Jez to secrecy so that was ok) because Hogwarts was just where you went. Well, hypothetically her parents could have got her into Durmstrang or Koldovstoretz, since they had different entry requirement to Hogwarts, which demanded all students be born in Britain, _but_ that wasn't the _point_. The point was the going to school bit.

Going to Hogwarts meant leaving this house for the vast majoriy of a year, every year for the next seven years of her life. She would be nearly eighteen when she finished. Eighteen. She couldn't imagine being eighteen. More importantly, she couldn't imagine spending that long away from home.

It wasn't that she was glued to her parents' side or anything. Her father worked long hours at the Ministry and her mother wrote so many voluntary articles for the Prophet on broomcare that it was virtually a full-time job from her sitting-room. On top of that, there hadn't been enough pureblood families locally to give her a daily school environment: instead there had only been boring governess Emilia and a few Portkey visits to and by other pureblood children. Once or twice, walking around the edge of the grounds, Mathilda had come across half-blood wizarding children. She knew for certain that was what they were because she had never met them before so they weren't purebloods, and one of them had been trying to keep hold of a Kneazle, so they were wizarding children.

So she had spent the vast majority of her eleven year-old life in this one house, with mainly the same people. The idea of going away for months and months and months … the idea of having to find her way to classes and carry her books with her, no rummaging around under her bed for them mid-lesson any more … the idea of sleeping in the same room as even one person, let alone an entire dormitory full … of not having her own personal private locked space that she could retreat to … it was just a lot to think about, ok?

She put a forkful of scrambled eggs in her mouth and swallowed them without tasting.

Oh, and that was another thing! What if she didn't like the food? Her father had written down how she could get to the kitchen to discuss it with the Hogwarts house elves, but she still had horrible thoughts of staring at a full plate of food and not eating any of it at all.

Later that afternoon, she sat on her bed and looked at everything. Jez had laid it all out earlier on in the day: she was just waiting for Mathilda to pick her favourite day robes and underwear to go in before she packed it. That was a nice thing Jez did, she appreciated that Mathilda got overly attached to inanimate objects like clothes and let her deal with it. This was the exact opposite approach to Mathilda's mother, who had once got so frustrated with this silly, illogical childish behaviour that she had Vanished a particularly beloved pair of comfy shoes. Mathilda still hadn't really forgiven her for that and it had been a year ago.

Her regulation plain black school robes were … well, just that. Plain. She was used to wearing brightly coloured robes in green, purple or pink. Sometimes with embroidery. Once she'd tried her own embroidery, but that hadn't gone well. At least the fabric was good quality and nice to touch. Her mother had made an embarrassingly big deal about walking straight past Madam Malkins, which had been crowded with other children who looked her age (she'd felt simultaneously excited and sick at seeing them) and into Twilfitt and Tattings instead. "They keep the riff-raff out in here," her mother had said, then laughed so merrily that Mathilda had joined in.

The textbook list had made her roll her eyes. Her family's speciality had been Charms, in her grandmother's era, and so she had read many more advanced books by now than Grade One. Transfiguration, too. Oh well, at least Potions and Astronomy with an actual telescope would be new. And of course, maybe Charms and Transfiguration would be completely different when she wasn't stealing her mother's wand while she was in the shower, and trying to read the movement instructions as quickly as possible.

Her wand. She picked it up again and squeezed it. It felt warm and smooth and comforting. Eight inches long, and made from alder wood with a unicorn tail hair core. It was just a little bit springy, enough to be fun to wave around, and not so much that she felt compelled to bend it as far as it could go. Her mother had been very pleased and proud when that wand had chosen Mathilda, since her mother's wand wood was alder too (twelve inches, rigid, dragon heartstring core).

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All opinions welcome!

xIlbx


	11. Chapter 11

Thank you to my new reviewer! Yay! :D There's some stuff in here that contradicts canon, if you take Pottermore as canon, but hey, the middle of Nano is not the time for worrying about that.

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At six o'clock that evening, Mathilda stood in front of the big, ancient, rarely used fireplace in the drawing room. She eyed its coal-stained bricks with unease, and smoothed her hands anxiously down her clean, brand new robes. Yes, they were black, but still ... Her mother laughed from where she was stood behind her.

"Here, you silly thing." She handed Mathilda a purple apron with long sleeves. "Stop pulling that face." Much to Mathilda's embarrassment she insisted on rolling up the sleeves and holding them out for Mathilda to put her arms through, like a little girl. The apron came down to her knees and it looked utterly ridiculous, but it would definitely do the job of protecting her new clothes from soot and dirt.

"That fireplace has seen many generations before you off to school," her father added. She ran her fingers along the perfectly sewn seam of her sleeve and hoped that he wasn't about to start off on a potted family history. He liked to do that when he got excited or tense.

This was another reason that she had been feeling more nervous than excited. Her family didn't take the Hogwarts Express, because steam trains were Muggle technology no matter how much certain wizards had tinkered with them since. The family had used the unreliable and difficult to find Portkeys for a century or so after the State of Secrecy was imposed in the seventeenth century, and then when the Ministry had stopped providing them they had switched to Floo Powder, Flooing straight into the fireplace of a friendly Hogsmeade resident. This year, just like her father had, Mathilda would be arriving in Madam Rosemerta's fireplace, then following directions to the station (which her father had drawn and Charmed for her), in order to meet up with the students as the Express arrived.

So, she wouldn't have the time on the train to meet people and familiarise herself with their new faces. She would be several hours behind socially from the first second she saw her fellow first-years. All of the Hogwarts testimonials always made a big deal about the bonding experiences they'd found on that long, picturesque journey into the Scottish Highlands. She wouldn't have any of that. It wasn't a nice thought.

And then what if she got lost in Hogsmeade and couldn't find the station? Or couldn't find it in time and all the first years had gone to the lake and all the carriages full of older students had rolled away up to the castle, and she was left there all alone in the pitch black night with no idea of what to do or where to go?

Would she have to come home again, tail between her legs? Were you even allowed back if you failed to get there for the Sorting?

Oh! Sorting! Just when she thought she'd run through all her paranoia for the day! The uncertainty of not knowing which House she would be Sorted into was an awful thing. Her father had been a Slytherin and her mother a Hufflepuff, so she presumed she would be in one or the other of those two. She didn't think she was all that clever (a bit clever, but not a lot) or brave, so the other two Houses didn't seem at all likely. And her father was always going on about how Slytherin was the House for the ambitious, for people who wanted to get somewhere in their lives and were driven and determined in achieving that. Absolutely not one single word of that description matched Mathilda in any way that she could think of. She would really be perfectly fine just living in this one House her entire life, reading her books and talking to Jez. But she knew she couldn't do that – and she did really want to learn magic. Hufflepuff was the obvious pick. The leftovers House, her father had once said, several glasses into bottle number two of port. Her mother had hexed his mouth shut and refused to undo it for thirteen hours (her father wasn't good at non-verbal spells).

What if the Hat refused to sort her? What if it said that she wasn't even nice enough for Hufflepuff? That she was just such a boring, mousy little girl that none of the Houses suited her?

With a mental shove she pushed herself out of her downward spiral of thoughts and climbed into the fireplace. It was so big that she and her entire trunk fit in with enough space to shuffle from foot to foot.

"Just give Rosemerta the apron, she'll send it back," her mother advised. Mathilda nodded woodenly. It felt like her stomach was full of snakes.

"You can Floo-call us at any time, there's a nice fireplace in the - in whichever common room you end up in, I'm sure." Her mother went pink at the telling slip.

Well, Mathilda thought dully, Mother thinks I'm a Puff too. Fair enough. "Or send us a little note via owl, just to let us know you're settled."

"Katherine, do stop drawing this out," her father said impatiently. "Mathilda does still have to get to the train station once she Floos."

"I'm not drawing it out! Don't you _want_ her to let us know how she is?" Her mother's voice was getting that edge. Mathilda and her father both winced away from it, and in doing so Mathilda saw the time. Her stomach sank into her shoes.

"Yes, of course Mother, I'll Floo-call you tonight or tomorrow," she gabbled as she grabbed a handful of Floo powder. Calming herself so that she could speak clearly, she shouted, "The Three Broomsticks, Hogshead!" and the swirl of Floo whooshed her away.

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All opinions welcome!

xIlbx


	12. Chapter 12

I hate Wednesdays so much. I have no time AT ALL. Here, have this fragment, hope you enjoy it!

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Mathilda stepped out of the fireplace and into the Three Broomsticks. A mop raced up to her and started pushing aggressively around her feet, where she was tracking soot onto the floor. She stepped backwards in a hurry to avoid her shoes getting dampened, and bashed her head against the bricks over the fireplace. She yelped and pressed one hand against the back of her head. Thank goodness Mother had cast a Lightening Charm on her trunk and case.

"Oh, hello dear!" Rosemerta peered round a door on the other side of the room. She was a plump middle-aged woman with big hair. "You're a little late, aren't you?" She flicked her wand dismissively at the mop and it fell to the floor motionless.

"Sorry." Mathilda took a cautious step back into the room, and began to peel off her protective apron.

"That's all right, quite all right. You've missed the other one, though."

Mathilda frowned. "The other one?" she repeated.

Rosemerta rolled her eyes so violently that her irises virtually disappeared. "Why does Stanley make plans and then tell absolutely no-one about them?" That seemed a rhetorical question, so Mathilda stayed quiet and waited for some sort of explanation. "Oh bless, you're a quiet one. Nervous?"

"A bit." She wished that she hadn't packed her wand. It would have been nice to have it to squeeze.

"You'll be absolutely fine, everyone's nervous on their first day! I remember mine still, and that was a while ago, let me tell you!" She laughed. Mathilda's nervous smile widened in response to the friendly sound. "Right then, off you go. Do you know where to go?"

Mathilda hesitated, then nodded. She shifted her trunk to the same hand as her case and withdrew the map Father had drawn for her. She pressed her thumb against the seal on it, and unfolded.

"Turn left outside the pub!" it squeaked. It was Jez's voice. Now Mathilda wanted to cry.

But that extra reminder of home had jogged her memory:

"My apron!" She held it out towards Rosemerta. "Can you send it home again?"

"Not a problem. Now, shoo, you hurry up now." She shepherded Mathilda out of the pub and gave her a quick hug.

"T-thanks," Mathilda said, taken aback. People who weren't her parents didn't really hug her. Jez did, but only when her father couldn't see.

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All opinions welcome!

xIlbx


	13. Chapter 13

Guys, help me choose. Is Ray's cat a Toyger, or any other breed of cat but with silver and black mackerel tabby markings?

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The map that Mathilda's father had given her gave excellent and clear directions, but Mathilda was still panicking. Especially since, according to her borrowed pocket-watch, it was nearly time for the train to arrive, and she had only just reached the bottom of the hill she had to climb and go down the other side of before she would see the station. Time was ticking away. Looking at the clock was too stressful, so she stopped, and just focused on putting one foot in front of the other. She hadn't quite thought this "lots of walking" bit of the plan through. Her shoes were starting to make her feet hurt.

An indistinct shout from somewhere above her made her break her focus on the path in front of her. She looked up, and saw someone in black school robes waving down at her. He was nearly at the top of the hill. She waved back, but decided to save her breath for walking even faster rather than climbing. Seeing another student had heartened her, though. She might still be the last person there, but not by a lot. Or, if everyone left without her, that student up there could tell a teacher about her. Her feet somehow didn't feel quite so sore now.

It was only quite a few minutes later that she looked up again, and saw to her utter shock that the other student was still there. As they saw her looking, they waved again. She waved back, responding without actually thinking about it. Suddenly she remembered Madam Rosemerta's words:

 _"You've missed the other one, though."_

Out of any sort of context that comment had made no sense and hadn't been something she felt the need to think about anyway, but now it seemed like she had been supposed to meet up with this other student in the Three Broomsticks so that they could walk together. She wondered who Stanley was, who had clearly done a very bad job of putting this plan together since neither her nor her parents had known a thing about it but judging by the fact that this new student was waiting for her, _they_ had known about it. Who only tells half the people about the plan? What a silly way of doing things.

On a whim, she shouted, "Hello!" up the hillside. She was a lot closer to the other student now. She could see the three big trunks and other cases that they were carrying. She couldn't make out from that distance if they were a boy or a girl, though. They had really, really long hair, though, she could see that.

"Hi!" The other student shouted back. Mathilda conducted a quick internal debate with herself about the gender of that voice. It wasn't a helpful voice in that respect. Female? She hesitantly decided on that, and rolled her eyes at herself for the entire thing because she'd meet up with the other student in only a couple of minutes.

Finally she turned a corner and was only about a hundred yards away from the other student. Ok, now that she was looking at them, she was definitely changing her mind, they looked like a boy to her. More importantly, she had just seen that one of the cases he was carrying was actually a cat basket. She practically ran the rest of the way.

"Oh wow, is that a cat?" Her voice went embarrassingly high-pitched. The boy's eyes widened but he held the carrier out a bit. By the way that he was standing, his mother had not cast a Lightening Charm on his bags.

"Yeah. He's just called Tiger, because I couldn't think of a better name."

Mathilda peered through the bars. A pair of huge green eyes stared warily back at her. She made a clumsy imitation of the smooching sounds she'd heard the non-pureblood children make to their pet cats and Kneazles, and wasn't surprised when Tiger didn't react at all. It was only when the boy shifted his weight to his other foot that she remembered with a horrible swooping feeling in her stomach that they had a train to meet. Soon. Hastily she stood up again.

"Ok, let's go!"

"Ok."

They tried to walk side by side for a little bit, but Mathilda couldn't walk in a straight line to save her life and the third time she banged her trunk against the cat carrier, she decided that trying to be sociable wasn't worth inconveniencing a cat. They did manage enough chat to establish that he too was a first-year.

"So how come you didn't get the train?" she asked. She was really hoping that it was because he was a pureblood too. She thought her parents would be very happy indeed if there was someone else in her year with the same upbringing.

"Oh, I was living there. At the Three Broomsticks. You know, getting a head start …" He trailed off but there had been so much laughter in his voice that Mathilda couldn't tell whether ot not to take him seriously. Actually, forget that, if there was even the slightest chance that he was telling the truth …

"You can _do_ that?" She tried to turn around, but they were on a narrow bit of path and it didn't quite work. He snorted.

"Not really. I've read all the books already. Got my wand a bit earlier than most people, probably."

Oh. Was that it? Mathilda drew herself up a bit as she spoke, even though they couldn't see each other's faces: "Well, I've read some of the books too. And better books!" She heard how stupid she sounded just after she'd said it, and felt her face turning bright pink. She searched for a distraction. "What's your wand?"

"Black walnut and unicorn hair."

"Ooh!" Mathilda didn't know much wandlore but her mother was very interested in it. "That's rare, I think." He replied, but whatever he said was drowned out by her squeal; they had just crested the hill and finally, in front of them, was the Hogwarts Express. It had clearly just arrived as there was still a flood of black-robed pupils pouring out the doors. She turned to Ray and beamed. "We made it!"

He grinned back. He had a lovely smile.

"We did."

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All opinions welcome!

xIlbx


	14. Chapter 14

Short again, but I'm counting a job application I wrote today in my word count lol. This is basically: LOOK NOBODY IS STRAIGHT. Warning, homophobic comments.

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It was the third of March in their fourth year. Well, actually it was very nearly the fourth of March, but the Gryffindor girls' dorm still had its lights on, courtesy of Mathilda's newest cute floating lights. They were green, as usual, with delicate golden wings: she had modelled them unashamedly on the Golden Snitch. She said it was her way of celebrating Gryffindor's recent victory against Slytherin. The lights did have a bad habit of setting themselves on fire if she left them on for too long, but Kenny and Tyson had managed to tie the charm to a location, namely the flagstone at the top of the stairs near their door. If anyone stood on that, the lights would all go out. So the girls put up with fire hazards for the ability to see each other as they talked late into the night.

They'd been doing that a lot more recently, even Mathilda who could get very tetchy about sleeping the correct number of hours. The teachers were talking more about OWLS now, and making dark comments about their pupils' futures if they didn't do that homework this time, Tyson. The future was a big and scary place, and it seemed closer than ever at quarter to midnight.

But, as with all late-night conversations, the topic varied and shifted. They'd just finished wondering when and where the Hogwarts house-elves slept when Mathilda dropped a conversational bomb:

"What do your parents think about gay people?"

There was a long, tense silence in the room. They managed to all look at each other without making any eye contact at all. Julia was usually the one to break silences like these, but right now her heart had flown into her throat and she was having to concentrate to breathe and swallow normally. Finally, Mathilda carried on.

"I asked mine the other day." Her voice had the familiar dreamy edge it got when she was sleepy. "Father said that they should learn to control themselves, then he hid behind his newspaper for the rest of the conversation."

(Julia always forgot that Mathilda preferred Floo-calling her parents over almost any other form of communication.)

"And then mother called me again later that evening and said, really nervously, that she supposed they couldn't help it, and that they shouldn't be blamed for it."

They lay there in silence for a bit longer. Julia was so full of adrenaline that she felt like she was vibrating. If she was holding her wand, it would definitely be giving off sparks. She couldn't help but notice Hilary's utter silence too. Finally, after a while composing herself and trying to make sure her voice sounded ok, she asked:

"Why did you ask them that, anyway?"

"Mm?" Mathilda sounded nearly asleep.

"Yeah." Hilary joined in at last. Her voice was accusatory. "Why did you even ask?"

Mathilda made a grumbling sound and rolled back over to face them. "Wanted to see how awful they'd be." She yawned. "It went better than I'd hoped, actually."

Julia stared at her soft round sleepy face and thought, I wouldn't just send sparks out my wand, I'd fucking set it on fire.

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All opinions welcome!

xIlbx


	15. Chapter 15

Being a bad human and counting the words I did for a blog post towards my daily count, so this only, like, 400 words. But I'm really proud of my blog post, and this makes a funny point, so ... it is wha it is. Hopefully tomorrow you'll get something full-length 1k.

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Hilary nearly fainted when she first saw the Hogwarts dragons close-up. There were two of them: huge twenty feet long reptiles with ridges all along their backs and a sharp pointed tail. Their eyes were huge and bright purple. All in all, they were exactly the sort of beast that Muggles made scary drawings of and told cautionary tales about experiences with medieval virgins. Hilary waited for a good few minutes for someone to tell her that it was ok. Almost everything she had met so far in the wizarding world had been briskly defused of any of its Muggle world power and mystique, so she was hopeful this would be the case here. Maybe it was friendly really. Maybe it turned intangible when it got annoyed so was completely safe. Maybe it only ate a very specific magical animal. Surely it didn't breathe fire?

So she listened with dismay to the safety lecture by the Care of Magical Creatures teacher, with ocassional comment as usual by Professor Dickenson, as it quickly became apparent that this was not going to be a nice surprise. These were dangerous animals, more aggressive than the UK's other species of dragon (other species of dragon? Hilary thought frantically), and they liked to eat deer. If they were ever allowed to roam uncontrolled, they might eat cows. Or groups of people. And yes, they breathed fire.

By the time the teachers reached the list of rules for students who came across the dragons in their wanderings, Hilary was stood right at the back feeling sick. Somehow she felt even sicker when she saw that Tyson was right at the front, eyes shining.

Don't go to this particular area of the grounds, where they have their nest. They are sterile but still highly protective of it.

Don't meet a dragon's eye

If you do, drop your vision to the floor and stay stationary unless you have a solid stone structure to duck into _immediately_. Do not run.

Don't try to repel them using spells; they are highly resistant and find most spells irritating to their skin and eyes

"Why do we have them?" Hilary cried out, interrupting Tyson's question on flight patterns. "If they're so dangerous, so lethal, why are they _here_ in a _school_?"

Professor Dickenson smiled paternally at her. "Why, my dear girl, what should we have for guardians instead? Dementors?"

Everybody chuckled at the very thought.

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All opinions welcome!

xIlbx


	16. Chapter 16

My level of behind-ness cannot even be MEASURED, oh dear. Welcome to one of my cracker ships, btw.

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It was way, way too hot, Max decided for the umpteenth time. He was a pale skinned blond, for heaven's sake. Well, he used to be pale. He'd spent the last two days turning different shades of pink and red. He'd never envied Ray and Tyson's darker skin tone before, but he really did now.

Hogwarts was sizzling in the grip of a heatwave, and everyone was suffering. Herbology lessons had become one of two horrors: moving hungry and dangerous plants to cooler areas, or unwillingly going into the tropical greenhouses and nearly dying on the spot. Care of Magical Creatures just involved pouring water down various creatures' throats, and eyeing it yourself longingly.

And it wasn't even just the outdoor lessons which were unbearable; their Quidditch practise had been cancelled tonight, since during yesterday's practise they had all been rendered virtually blind by a combination of looking into the sun and the haze rising from the ground. It had taken Tyson being knocked straight off his broom by a Bludger he didn't see for their captain, a snobby sixth year called Johnny, to finally accept defeat and say, yes, ok, let's call it a day. They'd all staggered to the changing rooms and sat there in soaking robes waiting for the energy to move again.

Normally the stone corridors of Hogwarts were the bane of the students' lives in winter, with older students casting mass Warming Spells and everyone carrying vials of Pepper-up Potions in their bags. However right now they were an absolute blessing. Ray had been late three times for Transfiguaration because he had accidentally sat down on his way to class and been too cool and comfortable to move again for a while.

Potions lessons were also reliably cool, but only Max really enjoyed those. Evreyone else paicked about their potions roo kuch.

All the same, he'd just sat through a long, loud letter from his mom about the value of Vitamin D, so he had begrudgingly got up from his seat in the common room and trudged outside, thinking optimistically that it couldn't be that hot at seven o clock in the evening, right?

Wrong. Definitely wrong.

He was aimlessly wandering near the lake, and trying not to look at it too much because the low sun reflecting off it was blinding. It was a distant dragon roar that made him look that way, since four years in Hogwarts had drilled into them to know where the two guard dragons were at all times.

The dragon was nowhere to be seen, but Max _did_ see a boat set off from the shore, kind of where the side next to him would have been if the lake was a square and had sides. The glare was so bright that a silhouette was all he could make out. He looked away for a bit, to let his eyes recover, then looked back.

Ok, he couldn't be one hundred per cent certain but he was ninety nine per cent certain that the figure had green hair. That made him immediately identifiable to Max as Oliver: a Ravenclaw sixth year, with a love-hate relationship with Johnny, who had emerged from his fifth year Charms lesson on Colour-Change Charms with brilliant green hair and hadn't changed it since. He was also very good at Potions, and Max had occasionally run into him in the dungeons playing around with Potions in his free periods.

(The concept of having free periods still Max made very, very jealous. It would be a couple of years yet before he and the others hit sixth year and could plausibly just sit and relax in the middle of the day.)

Oliver was much more creative in his Potion-making than Max, who, as he always despairingly told Kenny, was just really good at following instructions. (Nobody knew why Kenny was so bad at Potions.) Oliver had been pretty nasty and patronising the first few times Max had met him down in the dungeons, but after Max had gritted his teeth and made a few good potions, Oliver had warmed to him.

Max might, potentially, have a slight crush on Oliver, but he was sure that would fade if he ignored it hard enough.

He squinted back out at the lake again. Oliver's boat had stopped, and the boy was standing up and looking around. Stupidly, kicking himself for it immediately, Max waved.

To his surprise and badly supressed happiness, Oliver saw him and waved back. His arm moved, Max couldn't tell more than that from this distance, but he must have cast a spell because next thing his voice came booming over the lake.

"I've got Gillyweed, so don't panic!"

Max had only just registered what Oliver had said – amplifying your voice like that led to weird echoes – when Oliver dived into the lake. Oh, ok. Fair enough; it was really, really hot and swimming seemed like a good idea. He was further out than most students went, though, since Professor Dickenson had warned them that the Scottish freshwater mermaids were _not_ the harmless, attractive Muggle stereotype. Max had stayed away as a result, though he knew Ray regularly had a swim, because as much as he loved swimming he really didn't love the idea of being dragged under and _dying_ , Ray, get _out_ already!

So he was already watching the water where Oliver had dived with some trepidation. Then he remembered what Gillyweed did, and felt his heartbeat shift into a higher gear. Was Oliver mad? Gillyweed wasn't completely reliable – Max had heard too many horror stories. Did anyone else even know Oliver was down there? Was Max really the only person who knew that Oliver was god only knew how many feet underwater with unreliable gills?

Max sat and fretted and watched the water. The sun started to go down. Eventually Max checked his watch and realised with horror that the generally accepted limit for Gillyweed, an hour and a half, had passed, and there was no sign of Oliver. He stood up and stared across the lake. With the sun half gone, it was easier to see. The surface of the lake looked less inviting, though, which was just too bad because he already knew what he was going to have to do.

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All opinions welcome

xIlbx


	17. Chapter 17

Happy to see people are still reading, hope you're enjoying it!

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The only thing in Max's head as he headed for the water at a jog was a litany of swearwords. He fumbled his robes and T-shirt over his head then kicked off his shoes and trousers. Nudging the pile aside with his foot, he stood on the side of the lake, with the stones digging into his feet, and took a deep breath.

First foot in. The shock of cold made him gasp out loud. After the relentless heat all day every day for the past three days, the sudden temperature change made it feel like an icy hand had just closed around his ankle.

And, thank you brain, he really wanted that mental image right now.

He gritted his teeth and powered on. The water crept up his calves, over his knees. He knew from the endless swimming he had done as a kid that the two worst points were going to be groin and chest. Just before the water hit the first of those, he stopped and looked over at the boat. It was probably only … he measured he distance against a Muggle swimming pool … probably fifty, sixty metres away? Easy enough to swim, when the temperature wasn't screwing you over. But he was already shivering and could barely feel his feet on the stony ground. Still, he needed to reach that boat, so he dived forwards into the water and started to front crawl towards the boat as fast as he could.

As he'd expected the chill stole the air from his lungs. He missed a few breaths while his lungs and chest muscles struggled to recover, and was very, very glad that the lake wasn't salt water because it hurt enough as it was, going up his nose like that. He reached the boat in what simultaneously felt like forever and no time at all, and clung onto the side to lift himself out of the chill, just for a second.

For the first time since he'd checked his watch, his brain caught up with the rest of him and informed him about the Plan. It wasn't a great plan, but then this wasn't a great scenario. Oliver had left from this boat, therefore he would be coming back to this boat, therefore hopefully if he was in trouble _just underneath_ the boat, Max would be able to dive and find him.

With his newly functioning brain, Max made the sensible promise that if he hadn't found Oliver in three dives, he would alert the others. He still wore around his neck the charmed pendant Hilary had bought for them all last year which screamed at all the other paired necklace wearers if you squeezed it tightly for ten seconds.

Right. Time's ticking, then. He took a deep breath and dived, using the bottom of the boat for an extra push.

Almost instantly he lost most of his visibility. He swore again, and tried not to let panic consume his oxygen. He would only be able to potentially see Oliver within a very short distance, like, basically arm's length, but he'd expected this. That's partly why he'd told himself only two dives.

He stayed under for as long as he could, which turned out to be just over two minutes. He was actually a bit disappointed by that, he thought with a distracted part of his brain, while he clung to the side of the boat and breathed deeply. He used to be much better at holding his breath than that, but then again, this wasn't exactly a normal situation. His heart hadn't stopped racing since he'd first felt how cold the water was. It wasn't getting any warmer, either. Bits of him were just going numb.

Second time lucky, he thought as he put his face under and braced his feet against the boat for a push. The chill sucked at him again as he slid underwater. He went deeper this time, since now he had his bearings on where the boat was.

The water was darker and murkier than ever, and he could barely see his hand in front of his face. The lake was large enough to have its own currents, and they wafted against his cheeks like creepy fingers. He floated around in the darkness, waggling his hands and legs in the widest circles that he could manage in the increasingly futile hope that he would find Oliver that way. It had to have been ten minutes since he'd looked at his watch on the bank of the lake.

Max was just having the bleak thought that wizards were hard to kill, and accidental magic tended to accidentally save people's lives, when to his utmost shock he collided with something in the water.

As stupid as it sounded, even though he'd spent this entire time hoping to find Oliver, his first thought was _still_ that it was a mermaid come to drag him to his death. So he panicked and scrabbled, and the thing which had collided with him also scrabbled. That was useful though, as it told Max that the figure had legs, and was therefore not a mermaid and _therefore_ had to be Oliver. Relieved beyond words, he grabbed Oliver by whatever part he could reach (it was a joint if some kind, who knew if it was knee, armpit or elbow?) and kicked hard for the surface.

One look at Oliver when they surfaced convinced Max that he had been right in going to help: Oliver was gasping for air in huge, lung-rattling inhales and he was freezing cold to the touch. The gills that Gillyweed gave you on your neck were completely gone, and when their hands bumped as they trod water, he felt that the Gillyweed webbing had disappeared from Oliver's hands too. (He'd be lying if he said a small part of him wasn't dancing at the hand contact.) Wordlessly he helped Oliver climb back into the boat.

"Are you ok?" It was a stupid question, but he felt like he needed to say _something_.

"I'm _fine_!" Oliver's stinging tone, obvious even through the panting, made Max's heart sink. He knew that tone. Hilary used it sometimes, if she was feeling particularly embarrassed. He really didn't like that sort of reaction. Just get over being embarrassed already!

"Ok," he replied in as neutral a tone as he could. Oliver had obviously expected more of a reaction as there was a pause and then an unnaturally aggrieved tone:

"Which bit of 'don't panic?' didn't you understand? I wasn't speaking Mermish!"

Max wasn't usually at all snappy or bad-tempered but given the stress of the last fifteen minutes or so, he allowed himself to say, "The bit where you stayed underwater past your Gillyweed's expiration time!"

Oliver rested his head on the side of the boat and glared at Max. The wet hair in his eyes somewhat spoiled the effect, and Max had shared a room with Kai for four years now so very few glares could affect him now anyway. He kind of wanted to brush the hair out of Oliver's eyes.

"Did the mermaids try to kidnap you?" he asked, before his brain-to-mouth filter had quite kicked in. Om wow that sounded so stupid. Oliver snorted and said, as if he could read Max's mind,

"Don't be stupid. The merpeople keep themselves to themselves. I just forgot my wand and ran into a really persistent lot of Grindylows."

Max shuddered. "That doesn't sound fun either."

Oliver shrugged. Because Max was, as mentioned, very used to Kai, he could see the signs of someone pulling their usual composed mask back on. "It wasn't fun, no." Oliver brushed his hair out of his eyes and blinked at Max, as if actually noticing him for the first time. "Do you want to get into the boat?"

Max couldn't help a big grin spreading over his face.

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All opinions welcome!

xIlbx


	18. Chapter 18

I've wanted to write this bit, and the bits which will hopefully come afterwards, ever since I came up with the idea of a Hogwarts AU lol.

Thank you for reading so far, everyone!

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It was a clear night, four months into sixth year, and the old-fashioned pocket-watch in Kai's pocket had just announced that the time was two hours past midnight, "So you should be in bed!". The temperature was below freezing when the wind kicked up, but Kai was huddled in the Astronomy Tower and so could escape the worst of the wind. He'd been up here since ten o'clock, and he'd finally got everything he needed for that night. Flexing his numb fingers, he gathered up his many pieces of parchment. Star charts, calendars, scraps with calculations scribbled and crossed out … he could barely fit it all in his schoolbag. His quill fell out, and he overbalanced on the small wooden stool reaching for it. Numb fingers, numb bum, numb everything. Since starting this Astronomy project he had been frantically perfecting the Cushioning Charm when used for seats not for brooms, and was helping Hilary with counter-jinxes in return for the charm she knew which blew hot air at you. She kept calling it a portable hair-dryer and then Julia would laugh. Weird Muggle things, but he really wanted that charm.

His quill kept rolling away from his fingertips. Idiotic thing. It was a bright pink luxurious Fwooper quill that Max had got him for a joke for his birthday last year, and even though he'd checked it over vey carefully and had even "borrowed" a curse detector from home to make sure that it was magic-less, it did keep acting like it was possessed. Losing patience, he took his wand out of his back pocket and Summoned it. He stuffed it into his bag before it could do anything else that was strange.

His feet were clumsy from the cold and the lack of movement, so descending the narrow spiral staircase down the Astronomy Tower – why on earth did the staircase have not have banisters? - took all of his concentration. Or at least, that was how he later justified what happened next.

He heard footsteps on the staircase, and swore under his breath, thinking that it was the caretaker. He rooted frantically in his bag, trying to find the parchment signed by Professor Sinistra which allowed him to be out of bed this late at night.

" _Petrificus Totalus_!" He heard the incantation, from what sounded like more than one person, and fumbled for his wand, but his balance was too precarious and his fingers were too cold. The spell hit him and he toppled, stiff as a board, down the remaining few steps. All he could do was shut his eyes and pray that he didn't break his nose or fingers.

"Gotcha," a voice whispered above him once he'd come to a stop. Not addressing him directly, but sounding more like they were taking to themselves.

"Told you it would work." Oh. Not talking to themselves, then. The first voice sounded female and the second sounded male, but that was all he could figure out unless they happened to wander into his field of vision.

His mind had gone very cold and very fast in a way that it hadn't had to do for a couple of years now as he processed the situation and tried to figure out how much trouble he was in. What were they after? He couldn't even figure out how old they were to get a better idea of their magical abilities, although given the timbre of the boy's voice he thought he was older than second year. Surely a third-year would never attack a sixth year, even with back-up? Maybe fourth year, then. His brain whirred uselessly, but ground to a horrified halt when he felt hands on his back and legs.

For a long, awful second he thought that he was about to be raped, but then he heard the girl whisper, frustrated, "Where _is_ it?" as she checked one of the many pockets in his robes. If he'd been able to, he would have laughed.

His wand. They were after his wand. Oh dear. Was there anything more ironic?

Had he not taken his wand out of his back pocket to Summon his quill, it would have still been there, virtually in plain sight and easy pickings. But he had, and then he'd haphazardly shoved it into an inside pocket, and as it so happened, he was now lying on it. All the same, he was still in trouble. Wordless magic, he could now do quite a lot of. Wandless magic, he could turn lights on and off. But wordless, wandless magic was utterly beyond him, even with his wand two inches from his paralysed hand.

And then they joined forces and flipped him over. There was a triumphant cry of "There it is!" and his wand was plucked from his pocket.

Part of Kai was so angry that he wanted to scream and curse them with something Dark, but part of him still hadn't stopped laughing at the situation. The wand thief being stolen from. If they wanted to use his wand, or even get a good price for it, they would be sorely disappointed.

Now that he was facing up, he could see a bit more. They were careless about moving into the edges of his vision: maybe they didn't even know that Petrificus Totalis allowed the victim to move their eyes. He couldn't see much, since they were wearing long cloaks with huge concealing hoods. Hoods like that always gave him the creeps. However, over the next twenty seconds, as they held a whispered conversation that he paid little attention to, he did catch sight of their wands.

Just like that, he knew who they were. He didn't ever bring it up around Tyson and the others, because he knew that they got uncomfortable when reminded that he was the most Slytherin Gryffindor student to have been chosen for years and his antics in first and second year were prime examples of that, but he still noticed wands first. Still categorised people by their wands before any of their actual physical attributes. So yes, he now knew these two.

Chestnut and dragon heartstring (seven inches, looked rigid), and ebony with phoenix feather (same). And now that he was in this old frame of mind he desperately wanted to give that ebony wand a flick or two. Just to see. They were fourth-year Slytherins, twins.

Well, he thought to himself. Well. Fourth-years. He could handle fourth-years, once he unfroze. There was a hornbeam wand in his trunk that no-one knew about. He would go and get his wand back.

The pair had started to walk away. He listened to their receding footsteps and strained with all his might against the spell. The Body-Binding spell didn't last all that long, and Kai suspected that if they hadn't cast it together it wouldn't even have lasted this long.

He was free less than three minutes later, although his right hand was for some reason refusing to uncurl from the position it had been frozen in and he hurt all over from his tumble. Fine, whatever. It would wear off.

Time to get to work.

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All opinions welcome!

xIlbx


	19. Chapter 19

Feeling very dispirited about life and job hunting and all that, but at least this chapter was easy to write.

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"What happened to you?"

If Kai could do wordless wandless magic, not only would he have not got into this situation but if he somehow still had, Ray would have just been cursed. He restrained himself and just tried to ignore him. Difficult when their beds were next to each other, and when Ray was holding up his lit wand and squinting at Kai.

"You're all bruised!"

"Ten points to Gryffindor," Kai muttered, digging through his trunk for his wand. It wasn't as easy as it should have been, as his hand just wouldn't uncurl. Thinking about it, the spell must have hit that hand first and then spread to the rest of him.

"Why?"

Kai ignored him while he finished looking for the spare wand. Why was it at the bottom? He dug through would seemed like never-ending piles of folded robes and parchments. Underneath a Sneakoscope and a Shield Charm Hat, he found something which felt like the right shape. As soon as his fingers closed it though he realised that it was a dead Bowtruckle that Max had asked him to store while some Potion or another reached maturity. However, as if even in death the magical creature could sense wand wood, his wand was just underneath it. Finally. Once he was holding the wand, he gave Ray the barest skeleton of an explanation.

"Fell down the stairs." He could actually _hear_ Ray's skepticism even though the other boy was silent. Falling down the stairs wasn't an uncommon reason for students to attend the medical wing, since Hogwarts' staircases had a mind of their own and several seemed to be not only sentinent but malevolent. But it happened to first years, completely new to everywhere, and to third years who had to navigate new areas of the castle for their freshly-picked OWL subjects. It didn't happen to sixth-years, and if there was any student least likely to clumsily fall down the stairs, it was Kai.

"Who pushed you?" It wasn't an insightful question, so Kai took far too much pleasure in answering truthfully;

"Nobody pushed me." He juggled the wand in his frozen right hand for a second or two hopefully, but no it really wasn't feasible. Oh well. Good job part of the training in Duelling Club had been to become as close to ambidextrous with wands as was possible. He tucked his Astronomy note into an inside pocket and stood up from where he'd been crouched down by his bed. "I'll be back in a bit." He smirked as he walked away as fast as he could and heard Ray call after him, exasperated,

"Kai, what are you doing?"

He stopped in the common room and leaned absentmindedly on a table as he thought. He had to be careful about this. His Astronomy note would only give him so much lee-way. There were lots of areas of the castle that he would have no legitimate reason to be seen in. Like the Slytherin common room, for example. It would be the height of stupidity to head to the common room anyway; he couldn't get in unless he ambushed somebody coming in or out, and if he by some miracle caught them there they would have an entire House to call upon, not even mentioning the Head of House who would probably give Kai a year's worth of detentions.

But no, the question wasn't where would they be right now, since that wasn't productive and he had no way of knowing. The question was why had they been there to attack him? It wasn't as if he had been predictable: he had visited the tower at intervals which were nonsensical unless you were also doing NEWT level Astronomy, and every single time he had arrived and left at a different time. They weren't waiting for him. But they were waiting for anyone who came down those steps – and so now Kai was bitterly glad that he had been the victim, rather than Hilary or Max. It seemed much more appropriate that he get his wand taken off him, he who had done it to others before, than either of those two who felt irrepressibly guilty if they lied about not doing homework, or sneaking forbidden contraband back from Hogsmeade. He didn't give two shits about Emily, though. She could probably do with a tumble down the stairs and a brief separation from her prized walnut wand.

So they'd been haunting the Astronomy Tower because it was in semi-regular use thanks to the four of them being given the same project. But they'd struck there tonight, so they wouldn't be there. Where else would they be? Where would be a good place to ambush students? Kai's particular wand-hunting days had never been of an ambushing type, because he'd only needed to hold the wands to confirm or deny what he was looking after. That had occasionally required intimidation, but never ambushing. All the same, he very quickly came up with a great possibility.

The Owlery. Students were always sneaking up there late at night to send messages, whether they were homesick, lovesick, or engaging in illicit purchases. It would be a very good target, and what's more from Kai's point of view, if he was caught he could always make up a decent believable lie. Needed to send a message, the only question was what message and why, and hoping that it wasn't the caretaker who would ask Kai to show him the message out of spite. If pushed he could probably make some shit up about Hilary's owl needing fed extra after its journey earlier today.

Yes, ok, he'd decided. He'd go to the Owlery and try to find them. And then he would get his wand back.

Yes, there were two of them. They were only averagely magical, which he could measure from the duration of their dual Body-Binder, and were only fourth years. Even though he could reasonably assume that as Slytherins they knew more curses than they would if they were of another House, he wasn't worried. He was the best (male) duellist in his year, had the Darkest background out of most students, and most importantly he was happy and willing to do pretty much anything to them to get his wand back.

His current wand throbbed and sparked in his hand. Eagerly. He looked down at it and grinned. Hornbeam wands worked best for those of single-minded purpose.

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All opinions welcome!

xIlbx


	20. Chapter 20

I'm now so far behind that I'm going to have to write 2k a day to win, and I only managed this today because my boss was away at work ...

* * *

Kai made his way through the castle safely, but he slowed as he approached the corridor which led to the Owlery. There was a whole host of things fighting for his attention: his frozen hand was starting to become painful and he had no idea if that was a good or a bad thing; the night time chill felt like it had infiltrated right to his core; and all of his bumps and grazes were throbbing. However, if there was one thing that he was best at, it was ignoring his body. So he didn't slow down as he approached the corridor because he was in pain. Quite the opposite; his mind was running this show and it was thinking tactically.

He hadn't seen the twins yet. If they were here at all, he thought that they would be waiting in this next corridor. It was an educated assumption that the two of them wouldn't be ambushing students in the Owlery itself, as the racket the owls would undoubtedly then cause would attract the caretaker.

He raised his wand. They weren't going to take him by surprise this time. He'd even discarded his shoes just outside the Gryffindor common room so that his footsteps wouldn't give him away. His feet were absolutely freezing, but again that would wait until later.

He took a noiseless step into the corridor. Every nerve in his body felt stretched to their breaking point. The last time he'd been this tense he'd just missed the Snitch in last year's House Cup and he'd been frantically racing the opposing Seeker to catch it.

The twins' voices roses in the darkness. Before the spell had left their wands, or even completely left their mouths, Kai had adjusted his grip on his wand a fraction and said " _Protego_." He didn't need to shout and bellow like them for the spell to work. Hell, he barely even needed to say the words, since he'd been practising non-verbal shielding ever since they had learnt it last year, but right now he wasn't leaving anything to chance.

Their spell, the Body Bind again, bounced harmlessly off his shield.

"Hi." He walked confidently down the corridor. A Stupefy and a Disarmament Charm richoted away from him. "That's not how you break through a shield, kids. That's how you accidentally Stun yourself."

"Fuck off." The boy. Chestnut. Dragon heartstring core, yes, that was it. Must be.

Kai shrugged. "Give me back my wand and I will."

They laughed in boisterous unison. It seemed very well-practised. Perhaps it was supposed to be creepy. "That's not how this works," the boy said in a very self-consciously menancing manner.

"Is it not?" He could tell that his confidence was starting to niggle at them. The girl (ebony and phoenix feather and he really, really still wanted that wand) was shooting quick little glances behind her. He could tell because of the way her hood was moving. It looked like she was wondering whether or not to make a break for it up the stairs. Weak point. "Ok. I'll take it back, then."

On 'take', he dropped his shield and fired off a wordless Disarmament at her. The wand she was holding spun high in the air before clattering onto the stone floor.

It was his wand.

This distracted him so much that he didn't bring his shield back up in time and so got clipped by a Stinging Hex from her brother.

Ouch, these were clearly the boy's speciality. His skin felt like lava crawling on his bones.

He strengthened his shield. His wand still lay between them.

"Take your stupid wand," the girl said harshly. Her hood had tipped back a bit and he could make out the white, pointed shape of her chin. "It's shit, anyway!"

That was probably meant as a goad to make him neglect his shield and grab for his wand, but instead it made Kai snort with laughter. He took stock of himself and mentally praised Max for all the shield-holding practise (ok, competitions) they had done this term. He had power to spare for a little while yet.

So he sat down. The cold stone was a relief to his burning skin. "You've not done this for that long, have you?"

They stayed silent. Glowering. Probably confused.

He could have cursed them both into immobility (why just Body-Bind when you can cast individual Jelly-Legs Curses for each limb?) and taken his wand, but he felt the need to somehow get it across to them that they were meddling in wandlore, something that they had no clue about, and also that they needed a better perspective of the illegality of stealing wands.

"The whole wand stealing thing. Acacia, ash, laurel, hornbeam … maybe a couple of others. Hm. Spruce, too. They either don't work for you unless you win them fairly, or they just don't work for anyone who isn't their original owner." He shifted to a more comfortable position. "Always take a hazel wand's owner by surprise because if they get emotional their wand reacts. Oh, and laurel is a massive problem. Please try to steal a laurel wand, it'll be really, really funny."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" the girl snarled. Defensive. Didn't like hearing a good bit of information.

He smirked. "What, you've suddenly gone deaf?"

They would never be any use in a duel, he could see their tells a mile away. He added a touch more power to his shield and braced. A Stupefy and, oh, more advanced, the girl had tried _Confringo_ the Blasting Curse.

"Really?" he snapped once the spells had stopped ricocheting. "From this range you might have blasted me through the fucking castle wall."

"Good!" the boy called back.

Kai rolled his eyes. "No, not good. That would get you up on front of a court for intent to grievously harm someone by use of curses. Calm your little fourteen year-old selves down, for fuck's sake. Now, I appreciate I've spoiled your little game of hide, seek and steal, but use your tiny brains for five seconds, will you? If I don't get my wand back in two minutes, I'm alerting the teachers. When they get here, what will they find?"

They'd gone suddenly silent. He could almost see the cogs turning. He grinned like a shark.

"They'll find _me_ , with spell damage," He lifted his clawed right hand, "and probably still suffering from this bloody Stinging Hex, well done chestnut." He didn't realise until the boy cocked his head that he had actually called him that out loud. "Because I've visibly been attacked, they'll investigate the people I say did it." The girl looked like she was about to open her mouth and say something defiant. "And you can say whatever you want to them, lie however you want. When they check our wands, they'll see that all I did was shield and all you've done is attack. And that will look fantastic, won't it?"

"I used your wand!" the girl said, like she thought she'd just won a point. Kai sighed.

"One, yes, that will support me saying you _stole_ it, and two, they know I have this one." He spun the hornbeam around in his fingers and very nearly dropped it. Oops. Left hand wasn't as practised at tricks.

"Why do you even have that one?" the boy asked. Kai ignored the question.

"So now you're stalling, probably hoping to find a weak spot in my shield so that you can knock me out and take this one too. Which is really fucking stupid because I've just proven I can get you in serious shit for this."

They both scowled. There was no way out and they both knew it. Kai drew on his flagging energy and bolstered his shield a bit more. Cornered rats were the most dangerous kind.

To his surprise, they didn't try any dramatic showy curses to get past his shield. They didn't even kick him as they walked past (sometimes shields didn't work on physical assaults if they'd been coping only with spells for a while). They just stalked past him, hoods pulled hard over their heads as if he didn't already know exactly who they were. Probably thinking they were exuding menace and warning, but actually just looking like a couple of kicked stray dogs.

He waited for eighty three seconds after their footsteps had disappeared before finally giving in and releasing his shield. It had only been about five minutes but the high-intensity situation, blocking actual spells cast with harmful intent, meant it felt more like ten. The backlash hit him like the Knight Bus with a hangover, and he let himself sort of slither even further down the wall while he waited for the world to come back into focus and stop spinning.

That took longer than he thought, or possibly he had let the world just … pass him by for a moment or two. Possibly that one. Just a moment.

With a herculean effort he dragged himself to his feet. That hurt. Everything hurt. The Stinging Hex was the only thing keeping him awake right now.

He was absolutely clueless how he'd made it back to the dormitory, but an indeterminable time later, here he was, stood in front of the painting. He stared blearily at it. The Fat Lady was asleep.

"Wake up," he said hoarsely. She snorted and jerked awake.

"Well! Manners, young man … sorry, are you all right?" She came up to the edge of her frame and peered at him.

"Fine." He said the password, " _frabjuously_ " and tried not to trip as he climbed through the hole.

Somehow he wasn't surprised to see Ray sat there, glaring at him in the dim light of the barely burning fire.

"About time!" Ray said, in the particular brand of hushed whisper Kai hated the most because it was more audible than speech.

"What?" It was supposed to be an irritated snap, but it had come out more like a sigh. Ray's look of annoyance and concern bled more to concern, and he got up from his seat.

"What happened?"

Kai really wanted to sit down, but he was pretty sure that if he did he would never get back up again. "Don't suppose you know any Stinging Hex counters?" It was a rhetorical question because Charms wasn't Ray's strong point, so he was actually surprised to see Ray pull a face and nod.

"Yes, boiled Gurdyroot is pretty good, but I've not got any on me." He nodded towards the stairs. "Shall I see if Max has any?"

Kai shook his head. He didn't want any more witnesses to his exhaustion.

"How come you got hit by a Stinging Hex, anyway?"

"Scaring some fourth years," he replied truthfully.

"O ...k."

Kai started to walk towards the stairs, but his numb feet had other ideas and tried to twist underneath him. Luckily Ray's trademark speed came in handy and he steadied himself on Ray's arm. So he physically felt Ray twitch and then bristle up. He followed his line of vision, and realised that Ray had just noticed Kai had two wands stuck in his belt.

The look of anger and disbelief hit Kai like a brand. Bring back that Stinging Hex. Hell, bring back being blasted through the castle wall; anything was better than seeing how quickly your friend thought the worst of you.

"They're both mine, you fucking shithead." He wriggled free of Ray, leaving him speechless and ashamed, and headed for the stairs. Pure fury was a good fuel. Definitely to be recommended.

Ok, but maybe not a long-lasting fuel. By the time he'd made it up the stairs to the dormitory he was sweating and shaking. He tried to open the door with his right hand, completely forgetting that the stupid fucking thing was still useless.

He'd never hated being the furthest from the door before. When he finally reached his bed, he collapsed onto it face-first and almost instantly felt sleep tugging and swirling at him.

* * *

All opinions welcome!

xIlbx


	21. Chapter 21

I see re-categorising this was definitely a good idea - welcome new readers! Hope you've enjoyed reading in one go what's taken me all month!

* * *

It was towards the end of the summer before their sixth year started. Tyson had previously been enjoying a nice lazy lie-in, but this was completely spoiled by Hilary physically tossing him out of bed and screaming "Results have arrived!" into his half-awake, uncomprehending face.

Why did he have Hilary and Kenny staying over? Why had that seemed like a good idea at this time of year? She hadn't even had the decency to look embarrassed when he plopped out of the bedcovers wearing only underwear with a hole at the side.

Grumbling to himself, he grabbed yesterday's T-shirt and tried to make himself look even slightly presentable. Nerves were coiling slow tendrils in his stomach, but he wasn't too bad. He thought he'd probably passed everything.

He was never going to equal Hiro's results anyway. Not his Head Boy, never failed any subjects at all, ever, big brother.

By the time he made it downstairs, Hilary looked like she might explode at any second. There were three big official Hogwarts owls lined up in his back garden with envelopes tied to their legs. Hilary was pacing up and down in front of them, muttering to herself, and Kenny was, probably without realising, trying to push himself into a corner and disappear.

Tyson took a deep breath. He pushed down all the complicated Hiro feelings that he'd managed to forget about until exam results brought them back again, and amped up his clownlike behaviour.

Five minutes later, some of Hilary's tension had been defused as she chased Tyson round the garden, threatening to hex him for his comment and damn the consequences. Kenny was laughing. Just as Tyson was feeling pleased with himself, one of the owls hooted. The others shifted from foot to foot.

Hilary swore and went white again. Kenny visibly swallowed.

"You two are such scaredy-cats," Tyson said in as casual a tone as he could muster. He walked right up to the owl who had hooted, which immediately held up its leg. "Yeah, bet you want to head off home, don't you?" He dug in his pockets and offered it a slightly dusty owl treat. While it gobbled that down he untied the envelope.

The plain white envelope filled his entire field of vision. Suddenly he felt sick. He picked ineffectually at the corner of the envelope.

"Wait!" Hilary brandished her and Kenny's envelopes at him. He hadn't even noticed her taking them from the other owls. "Together." Her hands were shaking.

"Together." Tyson and Kenny agreed.

"On my count," Hilary said, "Three … two … one!"

Tyson abandoned all caution and just ripped his envelope in half. He unfolded the parchment. He scanned his results and waited for his lungs to start working again.

ORDINARY WIZARDING LEVEL RESULTS

 **Pass Grades:**

 **Outstanding (O)**

 **Exceeds Expectations (E)**

 **Acceptable: (A)**

 **Fail Grades:**

 **Poor (P)**

 **Dreadful (D)**

 **Troll (T)**

Tyson Granger has achieved:

Ancient Runes: A

Astronomy: A

Care of Magical Creatures: E

Charms: O

Defence Against the Dark Arts: O

Herbology: E

History of Magic: D

Potions: A

Transfiguration: E

He whistled a long sigh of relief through pursed lips. In the distance Gramps' Crup yapped in response. Two Outstandings was fantastic. He'd kind of been expecting one in Charms, but to get one for Defence Against the Dark Arts too made him grin ear to ear. Ok, so he'd failed History of Magic. That wasn't the end of the world. He was surprised he hadn't got a T for that, actually. He'd only answered one of the three essays questions.

An 'A' in Ancient Runes hurt for Hiro-related reasons, so he tried to pretend that hadn't happened. It had been such a boring subject, though ...

"How'd you do? " he asked, aiming the question into the air for either of them to answer. Both of them were the type to read results like a hundred times before answering, so he was pleased when Kenny answered promptly,

"Yeah, good." He chuckled, shrill from nerves. "Got a P in Care of Magical Creatures, though."

"You what?" Tyson burst out laughing and made grabbing motions with his hands. Kenny went pink but handed the torn open envelope over. Tyson scanned the parchment. Yes, Kenny had indeed failed Care of Magical Creatures. That really wasn't surprising given the number of times he'd run away, fainted, or refused to go near the creature of the day. However, being Kenny, he had got five Outstandings as well as an E and two As. Tyson grabbed Kenny and gave him a quick, tight hug. "Just a few Outstandings, hey?"

Kenny grinned and hugged Tyson back. "How'd you do?" he said in turn.

"Pretty well, got an Outstanding in Defence!" He handed the parchment to Kenny, and threw the wadded up envelope at Hilary. She was still standing there like a stone reading and rereading her parchment. "Snap out of it, Hil!"

She glared at him over the top of the parchment, but then sighed and held it out to him. He read it and raised his eyebrows.

"An 'A' in Muggle Studies?"

She gave him a poisonous look. He held up his hands and took a step backwards. He knew, of course, about the problems that she had with Hogwarts' Muggle Studies course ("They don't have a clue about anything, Tyson! They still set essays on _electricity_! I'm not sure our teacher even knows what a mobile phone _is_!"), but he had assumed that her desire for perfect exam results would have overcome her disgust. Clearly not.

She tucked her hair behind her ears. "I didn't actually think I'd pass it. I updated their essay question for them." She went pink when Tyson whooped at her, but then frowned again. "Not happy with Defence, though. I _tried_."

Tyson checked her parchment again. Ah, she'd only got an E for Defence. Privately he thought it was because she had never joined in with any of their jinxing matches, calling them stupid and against school rules. As a result, although her theoretical knowledge blew them all out of the water, and although there were some spells she had practised a lot and enjoyed, her overall practical abilities just hadn't been exercised enough for an Outstanding result.

"Are you still taking it for NEWT?" he asked.

She nodded. "Of course! I need it."

Tyson wished that he was half as certain about his future career as Hilary was with becoming a Healer. He was largely clueless still, which was not good when the next thing they had to do was choose their NEWT subjects. "I suppose you've both already chosen all of yours?" he said, resigned.

Hilary took a big breath: "Potions, Transfiguration, Charms, Defence, Herbology, Astronomy, Arithmancy, and I'll see what History of Magic is like."

Kenny shrugged. "Arithmancy, History of Magic … I don't know. Charms? You're doing Charms, I suppose?"

Tyson felt grateful. Just about the only subject he was sure of. "Yeah, Charms and I guess I'd better do Defence, ha. Don't know about the others, though." He chewed his lip. Care of Magical Creatures? Herbology? It was so confusing when he didn't have an end goal to aim for.

Hilary poked his shoulder. "You'd better do more than two. I know you can do more than that."

Tyson pulled a face. Faced with so many possible subjects, his chances of choosing 'the right" ones seemed very low. Wanting to get away from this topic he said, "I'm going to go and find out what the others got."

Hilary let him get away with that, as she hurtled off to find out what the rest of her dormitory had achieved. So Kenny came with Tyson and they argued over who to contact first. Max would be the easiest to get hold of, but both of them really wanted to know how Kai had done.

* * *

All opinions welcome!

xIlbx


	22. Chapter 22

Yesterday's chapter I wrote a few days ago, but posting it then would have been in the middle of the Kai chapters so I thought I'd wait. Write this yesterday and so you're getting it this morning!

* * *

Kai had been up for hours by the time his owl arrived. This wasn't really by choice; Kai's sleeping pattern was rarely by choice. For one reason or another he never really slept more than four hours a night. The nightmare about getting his results which had woken him up this time was tame, absurd. Almost a relief compared to his usual fare. Still, he'd tried going back to sleep a few times and had just slipped straight back into it, and even the mildest nightmare wasn't exactly something to aim for. The clock had read five in the morning, and since the sun was up Kai figured that was the best he was going to get.

Plus, the earlier he got up, the less likely he was to be anywhere near his grandfather when the results arrived.

So he'd set up camp in a far corner of the grounds, Transfiguring a rock into a chair and ordering breakfast from the house elf most loyal to him. Or, least loyal to his grandfather, anyway. He didn't really care what Minin thought about him as long as he didn't report anything to his grandfather. If Grandfather asked then of course Minin would have to say, but that was fair enough. Plus, Minin was truly phenomenal at interpreting questions and even demands in the way that he wanted to answer them.

Kai always felt guilty when he used magic at home, these days. In a ridiculously soft moment he'd promised Hilary that he wouldn't. It had been at the end of third year, and she had just discovered that while all wizarding children were subject to the same rule of no magic outside Hogwarts, it was actually only Muggle-borns and those who were living around Muggles who could really be detected breaking the rule. The presence of an adult wizard, using magic all day every day, generally masked an underage student using the occasional spell. This, he had explained to a bitter, fuming Hilary, was because the rule wasn't actually about stopping young, untrained students from doing stupid things with magic. That was the more modern spin that the school put on it to make it seem fair. It was actually just an old extension of the International Statute of Secrecy, and its aim was just to stop anyone using magic around a Muggle.

That had set her off nicely on an old rant about the standard of Muggle Studies in Hogwarts. Kai had rode that out, ignoring Tyson and Max who were throwing him dirty looks for "winding her up again", and then afterwards, as she swiped at angry tears, he had promised not to use magic over the holidays when she was at home with her parents.

So yes, he sat more uncomfortably on his chair than his excellent Transfiguration warranted. Rationalising it was pointless. He was just prioritising himself over her. It was sensible.

Grandfather would be proud. Well. Didn't that thought make him feel sick. He un-Transfigured the chair back into a rock. To his surprise it went back perfectly. They'd only covered that in a few Transfiguration lessons.

(Kenny had asked, "But is it the same object that it was before you changed it in the first place? Or is it a new one?" and Tyson had thrown a bookmark at him)

He settled back onto the grass. It was a bit damp, but just from morning dew and not from rain. He would dry off.

An hour or so later, the owl arrived. Even though it was on the smaller side for a Hogwarts owl, it was hard to miss. There wasn't exactly anyone else around here for it to be flying towards instead.

It landed awkwardly on the ground next to him and hooted. He sat up.

"Shut up," he told the owl almost absentmindedly as he fiddled with the string tying the embossed envelope to its leg. The knot was tiny but he'd been looking after his nails for the last week and so in a relatively short space of time he was able to send the owl on its way again.

He stuck his finger into the corner of the envelope and tore. Gave himself a papercut, but that was literally the least important thing in the world right now.

Kai Hiwatari has achieved:

Ancient Runes: O

Astronomy: O

Care of Magical Creatures: E

Charms: O

Defence Against the Dark Arts: O

Herbology: E

History of Magic: A

Muggle Studies: O

Potions: E

Transfiguration: O

He breathed out. Read it again, and then again. Not bad. Not bad at all. He was amazed he'd passed History of Magic. Not even his best efforts could keep him awake in that classroom. The three Es made him pull a face. He knew that he should probably be more proud of the decent number of Os than he was. Anything other than an O in Defence would have been a hard slap to the face, though, he could fucking _sleepwalk_ that subject, and he'd enjoyed Ancient Runes much more than most of the other subjects.

Muggle Studies, though. His grin stretched so wide that it hurt. Outstanding. A Hiwatari with Outstanding knowledge of Muggles. He really wanted to go and show his grandfather that, in the same sort of way that he wanted to jump off a cliff if it was too near, or touch a hot stove. It would do him active harm, but it was an exciting and intriguing thought nonetheless. Fuck you, old man. Fuck you and all of your worthless pureblood creed.

Now that he knew that he hadn't disappointed himself (much), he wanted to know how the others had done. Well. How Tyson had done.

* * *

With three of the community's children getting their exam results, the first generation to go back to Hogwarts for fifty years, results day was a bit more of an event for Ray, Lee and Mariah than it was for the others.

There were refreshments in the cobbled streets and homemade fireworks which had burned two cats so far, and neighbours kept craning to see through the curtains of the room that the three of them had barricaded themselves into.

Unlike Lee, who hated being the centre of attention and didn't deal well with nerves and so had immediately starting growling and swearing at people, Ray had actually quite liked the attention for a little while. The thing which had soured it for him instantly was the thought that if their results were bad, all the celebrations and nosiness would feel like the worst thing in the world. As soon as he'd thought that he found that he had to take refuge alongside Lee, and without either of them outside as moral support, Mariah had quickly followed.

"Even mum and dad keep telling me how proud they are! It's stupid! We could all have failed everything!" she grumbled.

"Shut up," Lee said miserably. "You might jinx it." Looking at him you would have thought that he was furious, not pissing himself nervous. His brow was furrowed, his arms crossed, his legs in a secure stance. This was just because Lee's default reaction to emotion these days was to hit things. Having known Lee his entire life, Ray could see underneath to the nervous tics.

"I can't jinx a result that was fixed a month ago!" Mariah shouted in frustration. (This wasn't the first time they'd had this argument). Ray tried to meditate, but their bickering kept drawing his attention instead. He was too nervous to concentrate anyway.

When the school owls eventually landed on their windowsill and knocked, Ray was certain that it was only Master Tao's quick charmwork which stopped Lee and Mariah's uncle grabbing for an envelope. Or possibly for the owl. It was a smart, well-fed specimen and Lee's uncle was the sort of man who knew where to sell anything.

They managed to get hold of their envelopes with nothing going wrong. The owls flew back to Hogwarts unharmed and in the same number that hey had arrived in. They stared at each other and at the envelopes in stressed silence. Footsteps and muttering outside the door: Lee and Mariah's parents were waiting anxiously.

"Together?" Mariah asked. The word meant a little something extra to this group, after all, and Ray clapped a hand on Lee's shoulder before agreeing,

"Together." He waited until they were all holding their envelopes. "And three, two, one …"

The creamy parchment fell into his hand. He flicked it open as quickly as possible. The letters didn't make sense to him for a good few seconds, until the frantic pounding of blood in his ears lessened.

Ray Kon has achieved:

Astronomy: A

Care of Magical Creatures: E

Charms: E

Defence Against the Dark Arts: A

Divination: E

Herbology: O

History of Magic: D

Potions: P

Transfiguration: E

An Outstanding in Herbology! He'd never expected that. Never. A bubble of hot joy welled in his throat and he blinked back tears. Four Es as well! He didn't care about Astronomy, he was just pleased he'd passed, and his dismal (ha, D for dismal) History of Magic result was just funny. He'd given up on that as a subject by about halfway through second year. Potions was maybe a bit disappointing, an A might have been nice, and he'd really, really wanted an E in Defence … but on the whole, he was overjoyed.

He spent nearly a minute working up the courage to look at the others. He didn't want to be gloating over good results if they had done badly, but equally he didn't want the awkward experience of being really proud of his results then finding out they had far eclipsed him. He got a lot of the latter, being friends with Hilary, Kenny and Kai.

Basically, if they had all done broadly the same …

Finally he met Lee's eye. Lee grinned and handed over his envelope. No Os for Lee, but no fails either. Straight Acceptables and Exceeds Expectations, all the way down, and more of the latter than the former. He yanked his friend into a tight hug.

"Congrats."

"You pleased?" Lee's voice rumbled through the hug. Ray nodded, and passed him the parchment. They both turned to Mariah. She went red.

"Fuck off, I'm still reading."

Lee rolled his eyes. "There's not that much to read!"

"Fine!" She thrust it in their general direction. She was twitchy and going blotchy at the neck, but that was just her reaction to anything that involved adrenalin so it left them none the wiser.

Ray turned the parchment over. Now that he and Lee had already celebrated, he really, really hoped that she had done ok ...

His mouth fell open. "Merlin's balls, Mariah!"

Lee snatched it off him, and choked as he read.

She had five Outstandings. _Five._ Care of Magical Creatures, Herbology, Potions and Transfiguration.

Wow.

Ray did soothe his jealous soul slightly by pointing out to himself that she had failed Astronomy and History of Magic, though.

Lee flung the parchment back at her, grinning from ear to ear. "What were you even doing, trying to make us worry that you'd not done well!"

She had gone scarlet under their surprised reactions, doing that funny little torso wiggle she only did when she was both embarrassed and pleased.

"Yeah. It's amazing." She tucked her hair behind her ears with both hands and blew out a long breath of air. "Guess I know what my NEWTS will be." She held out her hand for the boys' results. Ray handed his over with a twist in his stomach. She had done _so much better_ than him.

And NEWTS as well. He hadn't even thought about NEWTS, not really. He supposed that he would just do everything he had got an E in. Seemed sensible. And Defence, if he possibly could. He loved that subject.

Nervously, they opened the curtains and showed the small crowd by smiles and hand gestures that they had done well.

"Congratulations!" they heard over and over again as they ventured into the street at last. "Congratulations!"

Ray had a sudden thought which made him almost as tearful as his results had. He wondered how many of these eager friends and family members were so interested because they had secrretly wanted to go to Hogwarts too? Had any of them, like Lee, received their letter then had it snatched away?

He was so glad he had left them that year.

* * *

All opinions welcome!


	23. Chapter 23

More grades stuff - turns out that's really easy to churn out words for ...

I'll try to make the final (?) two chapters BEGA related. I know exactly how I would have that happen in a full-length fic but I can't write full-length fics lol so you'll have to make do.

* * *

It was the first day back at Hogwarts. Their first day of sixth year. They had just finished breakfast, and now the Heads of Houses had descended down from their high table to the long student tables and were speaking to every sixth year individually. It was time to make their decisions about which NEWT subjects they would study for the next two years.

Some, like Hilary, knew exactly what they would pick because they had already chosen their careers. Other students looked askance at this, at claiming that you knew what you wanted to do for the rest of your life at only fifteen. Some, like Tyson and Ray, had no clue about their future and were just going to pick whatever they had scored best in. A few, like Mathilda, waited fearfully because their future at Hogwarts hung in the balance.

McGonagall came to Hilary first. This was deliberate on Hilary's part – she'd studied the seating from last year. With typical efficiency, she wanted in and out again as quickly as possible, so she rattled off her choices as soon as the Head of House made eye contact with her.

"Potions, Transfiguration, Charms, Defence, Herbology, Astronomy, Arithmancy, and History of Magic."

After six years the staff were well used to Hilary's endless determination, so McGonagall merely raised her eyebrows in a quick, silent question. Had it needed to be voiced, it would have sounded something, "Eight is a lot of NEWTs, Hilary, are you certain?" But it didn't need to be said. Everyone knew that while Hilary was known for plunging as recklessly into things as the next Gryffindor, she went into those things one hundred per cent convinced that it was the right thing to do.

So McGonagall simply nodded and tapped the piece of parchment she was holding with her wand. Lines of ink sprouted from the tip and quickly traced Hilary's new timetable onto the parchment.

"Thanks, Professor." Hilary took the parchment and flashed a quick, dazzling grin at the others behind her before she sped off. First period Monday morning: Charms.

Max was next. Not particularly through any choice of his, he'd been the slowest to catch onto the seat war which had gone on this morning. He was pretty confident in his new subject choices though, so he fearlessly handed over the scrap of parchment where he'd written them down last night.

"Well, Tate. Continuing to NEWT in Potions, Astronomy and Herbology is no problem at all with your Outstandings. I'm also happy to take you to NEWT level study in Transfiguration with Exceeds Expectation."

"Thanks, Professor," he said cheekily. She pursed her lips, but her eyes twinkled.

"Are you sure you don't want to take Charms? An E is a solid result which would still stand you in good stead for NEWT study. And it would surely be a shame to let your excellent Care of Magical Creatures result go to waste."

Max shrugged. "I got good results, Es and Os, in seven out of my ten OWLS, but I don't want to take seven NEWTs, Professor. I know what I like studying."

Yes, everyone within earshot thought, Potions. All of his other subjects were merely complementary to Potions. Herbology gave him wider ingredient knowledge, and Astronomy meant an in-depth knowledge of planetary motions and other topics which affected the growth of certain ingredients. Transfiguration wasn't as directly relevant, but sixth and seventh year study would involve, or so they had been told, theoretical study into the nature of objects, so as to better your Transfiguration. Knowing the nature of objects seemed useful when you were combining and altering them in a potion.

Only Max could have got away with cheeking the Head of House like that, they all thought enviously, as he was waved aside with his new timetable. He apparently had a free period now, since he just sat back down and watched the ensuing proceedings.

The next hapless victim of McGonagall's sharp gaze was Ray. He was far more nervous and underconfident than Hilary and Max had been. Nervously, he read out from his tentatively chosen list.

"Care of Magical Creatures, Charms, Divination … and Defence against the Dark Arts?"

She frowned. His stomach dropped like a stone. He knew that Defence would be a hard sell.

"There's no problem with your other choices, Kon, but progressing to NEWT level study in Defence against the Dark Arts on a basis of an "Acceptable" grade at OWL will be difficult for you."

Ray belatedly realised that his fists were clenched. "I know that. I've looked in the textbooks for the year, Professor, and it's hard but I know I can do it!" He could feel his face going hot under her scrutiny. Several tense seconds passed. To his surprise though, she didn't try to change his mind. Out came the wand and his new timetable. "Good luck, Kon." He had Divination as his first period subject, same classroom as it had been for OWLs. Feeling slightly shellshocked, and somehow as if he'd been cheated of an argument he'd been gearing himself up for, he headed off for the lesson.

Tyson had really, really wanted to speak up just them, to say, "Hey Professor, I'll help him!" But at fifteen he was getting better at this whole tact thing, and knew that Ray wouldn't have forgiven him for a while if he had so clearly shown the difference in their skill levels. In front of the whole Great Hall, no less.

"Hi, Professor!" He said as she turned her attention to him. One corner of her mouth turned up.

"Good morning, Granger. May I assume from your enthusiasm that you have got your choices ready for me?" She looked pointedly at his hands, which held his OWL results copied out scratchily. He pulled a face and shifted from foot to foot.

"Kind of?" Her gaze sharpened. "I know some of them! Charms and Defence, and …" he faltered, checked his results again, "Transfiguration and Care of Magical Creatures!" Transfiguration wasn't as safe a bet as the others, but Hilary's comment that he could do better than two NEWTs was still ringing in his ears, and he'd nearly blurted out Herbology as well.

Both corners of her mouth curled up this time, but the smile still managed to be sarcastic. "A tried and tested, nay, time honoured method of choosing higher level subjects, Mr Granger."

"Uh … thanks." Nonplussed, he took the timetable she handed him. It took a few seconds of staring at it before he registered that, just like Hilary, he was supposed to be in Charms right now.

To exactly no-one's surprise, Kai was right behind Tyson. To the surprise of none of the other sixth years, he was staring at his choices and muttering to himself. Tyson's last minute change would have thrown out Kai's plans, of course.

"Well, Mr Hiwatari?"

"Defence against the Dark Arts, Charms, Care of Magical Creatures, Transfiguration, Astronomy and Ancient Runes." These subjects were exactly as everyone listening had predicted: all his chances to do even better than Tyson at NEWT than he had at OWL, plus the two subjects which he actually seemed to enjoy. His deliberate mixing up of the order in which Tyson had said his subjects didn't hide anything. What he said next made Kenny drop his glass, though: "And Muggle Studies."

Even McGonagall looked taken back. She blinked at him over the top of her spectacles.

"Are you sure?"

He smirked to hide the unexpected stab of hurt. "Did you not _see_ my result?"

It was like the OWLS all over again. He'd studied it for two years and still everyone just looked at him and saw the Dark-affiliated Slytherin pureblood infiltrator they wanted to see.

Some of this must have shown on his face despite his best efforts – or perhaps Mc Gonagall was an expert Legilimens who could get past his currently background level Occulmency shields. That wasn't a fun thought. He put a bit of energy into raising them higher. Either way, she sighed and raised her wand. Ink spiralled onto the parchment in front of her.

Glee over sticking yet more fingers up at his grandfather combined with … well, the fact that he was sticking two more fingers up at his grandfather and all the dread and residual guilt that brought with it … those two feelings warred inside him as he stuffed his timetable into the front pocket of his schoolbag and turned to head off to Charms.

"Please feel free to come to my office at any time," she said in a whisper meant only for his ears. Kai somehow managed to swallow down a defensive "Fuck off," and gave her a jerky nod instead. He walked very quickly indeed off to Charms.

Mariah had drawn the unlucky seat next to Kai. It wasn't unlucky because of the NEWTs this time, it was just unlucky because Kai ate left-handed for some unknown reason and didn't care who he jabbed in the ribs or whose drink he knocked over.

"Care of Magical Creatures, Herbology, Potions and Transfiguration." Just as with Hilary, there was no hesitation in her voice or eyes because she had the results to support her choices. The professor's mind was obviously running along similar lines because there was definite teasing in her tone as she asked,

"Is that all? You don't want to join the majority so far in Charms? Or keep Kai company in Ancient Runes?"

Feeling daring after her fellow pupils' cheekiness, Mariah answered, "Only what I'm outstanding at, Professor!"

"Very well."

Julia came after her – she had won the seat that wasn't next to Kai's elbows.

"Care of Magical Creatures and Defence against the Dark Arts," she announced. Everyone waited for more. No more came. McGonagall raised both eyebrows at once, a sign of definite surprise.

"You are capable of more than just two NEWTs, Miss Fernandez. Most people are." That last comment was tart. Mariah winced for her friend.

Julia shrugged. She was practically radiated defensiveness. "I like these two."

"You would be able to do almost any other subject. Your OWL results were highly satisfactory."

Julia laughed. It had no humour in it. "Maybe for you." McGonagall tilted her head a fraction to the left, and everyone immediately tried to be somewhere else in their heads and not to make eye contact, ever. Even Mariah stared fixedly at the table in front of her and waited for Julia to be put in detention. Nothing came from the professor: in fact it was Julia who broke the tense silence. "Fine! You pick!"

"Transfiguration, of course." The professor's voice was softer again, amused. "And perhaps Herbology?"

Julia sighed, long and loud, but when she next spoke her voice was small. "I'll try."

"Both."

"Yes."

The professor's next words were so soft that only Mariah was sat close enough to hear: "Good girl." She saw the way that Julia's body quivered at the praise.

Now it was Kenny's turn. He anxiously pushed his choice over the table to her. He hadn't expected that she would be so pushy and demanding over making sure she thought they were living up to their potential. She read them out to him, watching him closely.

"Arithmancy, Transfiguration, Charms, History of Magic. No Potions? You got an O in that, after all."

Kenny shook his head so hard that his neck clicked. "No, no, I'm not very good at Potions really." He knew that an Outstanding didn't make sense with that statement, but that grade was the result of him working late into the night with Max and Hilary with Max's little collapsible cauldron, practising exam standard potions again and again until he could be pretty certain that he wasn't going to fall to bits in the exam like he usually did in lessons. To his surprise she didn't ask for any of this explanation, and instead just gave him his timetable and waved him off to Charms.

Last of all, and deliberately so because she had been dragged down here against her will by the rest of the girls, was Mathilda. She watched the professor approaching with exactly the same wide-eyed horror as a mouse freezing in front of a cat or fox.

"Did you receive your re-marked OWLs?" The professor's voice was entirely, terrifyingly neutral. Mathilda nodded. Her face felt like it was on fire. She was certain that every eye in the Hall must be on her. The dirty cheater.

Her first set of results had been Outstandings almost across the board, with an E in Arithmancy and Potions. Once everything had been … revealed, they had changed dramatically. She looked again at the parchment in her hand. The envelope with her new results in had been waiting for her when they got to their dormitory. Resting on her pillow like a gift. Some gift.

Ancient Runes: P

Arithmancy: D

Astronomy: P

Care of Magical Creatures: A

Charms: O

Defence Against the Dark Arts: A

Divination: E

Herbology: A

History of Magic: E

Potions: P

Transfiguration: E

She had genuinely believed that she wouldn't be allowed back to Hogwarts, let alone allowed to take NEWTs. For courage she squeezed the soft silk of her inner robes.

"Charms, I suppose," she said. Her voice shook. "And … Transfiguration?" An unreadable expression crossed the professor's face. Mathilda cringed and fell silent, expecting a comment about not wanting dirty cheaters in her advanced class.

"Transfiguration," McGonagall said calmly, "and what else?"

"History of Magic. Or Divination."

"You could probably take them both." That was a little bit funny, amidst all the anxiety. Everyone knew what the professor thought of Divination.

"Are you sure?" Mathilda couldn't help but ask.

"You were performing at pass or higher standard for seven OWLs. I promise you that four NEWTs will not be over-reaching yourself, even if one of them is Transfiguration."

"Ok." Mathilda turned blindly away from the table. She was so pumped up with wasted adrenalin that she could barely see more than a foot in front her. Well. That had gone better than she thought.

* * *

All opinions welcome!

xIlbx


	24. Chapter 24

So, that thing where I said I would write BEGA was clearly a lie because actually this is the climax of season one, episode 42, except with wands ...

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Kai walked into Balkov's office without knocking. It wasn't even his office, it was a rarely used classroom that he'd been allowed to make his own.

He squinted into the dark room. The only light came from a lamp on Balkov's desk. The man sat with his back to Kai. It all created an atmosphere of brooding menace that in a different mood Kai would have been delighted to mock.

"What?" he asked instead. It was a demand, and an angry, frustrated one at that.

For weeks now Balkov had been following him around after and in between lessons, asking him stupid questions and trying to get him to join his stupid duelling club. It didn't matter how many times Kai told him that he wasn't interested, he still kept on popping up. His stock reply was usually, "Hm, well, maybe one day, Master Kai."

For some reason being called Master Kai bothered him. Probably it was just the weird strangeness of an old man, a _teacher,_ referring to him in the same way as the house elves at home. Or the fact that he exclusively called him by his first name, while most of the teachers exclusively called their pupils by their surnames.

Usually even this amount of provocation wouldn't have drawn a reaction from him, but he was so tired lately that he didn't have as tight a hold on his reactions as usual. He hadn't been sleeping properly for a while. He didn't know why, and nothing was helping much. Everyone in his dormitory just made it worse too: if he woke up at one o'clock and couldn't (wouldn't) get back to sleep, he usually tried to do what he did at home: get up and do something for a bit in the hope that his body would somehow reset itself.

The problem with that was that as soon as he left the room he could guarantee that at least one of them would stagger out , bleary eyed, and asking "What's wrong?" all sanctimonious and sappy, as if literally anything they could say or do would make his brain let him sleep. Or if they didn't wake up when he left, they would wake up if he came back in, and again with the stupid questions. He'd told Tyson in particular to fuck off so many times that he had no idea why the boy kept doing it. Sometimes he stayed in the common room until breakfast to avoid them, hunched uncomfortably in a chair and hoping for sleep.

So when he had received the message to say that Balkov wanted to see him in his office that evening after dinner, he had marched off fuming. Mixed up in the anger at the man's refusal to take no for an answer was a strange sense of anticipatory relief. Maybe after this stupid meeting he would finally see the back of Balkov. He hadn't realised how much the man's constant dogging at his footsteps had been bothering him until he imagined it stopping. It was a wonderful thought. He almost didn't care what was about to happen, as long as Balkov fucked off after it.

He asked again: "What?", almost shouting it into the room.

"Excuse me, Kai?" Balkov's voice was soft. Amused. Kai wasn't fooled. He didn't trust this man as far as he could throw him. Nonetheless, without really being aware of what he was doing until he'd done it, he stepped further into the dark room and closed the door behind him.

"What do you want?"

Balkov turned to face him. Steepled his fingers. The smile on his face was gentle and friendly. "Just to have a chat."

Kai scoffed. "About what? Your fucking duelling club?" He threw the swearword in there deliberately. Baiting him.

Balkov inclined his head. "In a way." He gestured for Kai to sit in the chair on the other side of the desk. Kai took a few steps forwards automatically, following the social norm, but recovered himself and leant against the cold stone wall instead.

"Well?" He folded his arms and glared at Balkov. "Get to the fucking point, then."

Balkov shook his head slowly, still smiling. "Such rudeness, child."

Before Kai knew it he was halfway across the floor with his wand out and his fists clenched. "I'm not a child!"

"Of course not. You're quite unlike the rest of your year. Advanced, for a second year." The quiet agreement bemused him. He stared even harder at the man. "Are you ready to sit down so that we can talk like adults?"

Kai hesitated. He had no idea what he was feeling right now but all of it was bad. Still, for reasons he couldn't explain he did sit down in the offered chair.

Balkov spoke for several minutes; the same sorts of mindless pleasantries he had cornered Kai with after lessons for weeks on end. Discussing the perks of joining his club.

"Would you get to the point already?" Kai snapped at last. "I'm not going to join your fucking duelling club! You're just upset that Julia is the only second year who's joined!"

"It's more than just a duelling club, Kai." Balkov made eye contact with him and held it for much longer than Kai was comfortable with. Kai stared back in stubborn silence. He was still clutching his wand in his lap. He must have fidgeted with it or something, because Balkov's gaze suddenly switched to it. "I know from asking around the staffroom, Kai, that you are interested in wands. In the duelling club I teach the students about wandlore. It's old magic, wandlore. Maybe the oldest. There are lots of legends about wands."

Kai's blood ran cold. He watched Balkov warily.

"I assume that you are acquiring wand information for yourself, since I have noticed that you like to inspect others' wands."

His heart was beating in his ears like a frightened bird against glass. "So what?" He said through the lump in his throat. "Wands are …" He trailed off. Didn't quite know how to put that into words.

"They are quite the phenomenon," Balkov agreed. His smile went crooked at one edge; a smirk. "Do you always give these wands that you inspect back, Kai? Immediately?"

Well, there was no reasonable answer Kai could give to that so he stayed silent. That seemed like the right thing to do, or certainly a catalyst, because the fake little smile disappeared from Balkov's face and he leaned forwards right into Kai's admittedly large personal space. His gaze was intent on Kai's face.

"I think I might know why you take other people' wands, Kai. Your grandfather and I have been speaking."

Kai couldn't manage a response. He thought he might actually have forgotten how to breathe. Grandfather? Where had he come into this? How did Balkov know him? _What did Balkov know_?

"I think, and please do correct me if I am wildly off the mark, but I think that you are inspecting those wands for something in particular."

Breathing would be an excellent idea. Any time now. So would running the fuck out of here, but his head was reeling so badly from trying to figure out what was going on that he couldn't make his limbs move from the chair.

"You're looking for a specific wand, aren't you, Kai?"

Kai's brain function was best expressed by "… ! ..."

Balkov rocked back to a more normal seating position and steepled his hands again. He looked satisfied. "There's nothing wrong with that, Kai. It makes perfect sense for a strong b- a strong student like yourself with your powerful family background to want to seek out the best in everything."

That broke Kai's paralysis. If Balkov was going to make all this shit explicit he was at least going to get it right.

"That's not it." Now it was his turn to lean forwards. Both of his hands were squeezing his wand. "I'm not just looking for some generic "strongest wand" thing. Like, all wands can be strong. Some woods lean you more in certain directions than others, that's all."

He suddenly remembered with a heart-stopping jolt that Balkov's wand was yew (six inches, rigid, dragon heartstring). It sat in front of him, squat and thick and somehow ominous. He both wanted and really didn't want to know what curses that wand had cast in its time with Balkov.

"Yew, for example," he tried to keep his voice calm, "is really rare. It's supposed to be good at curses. Some rumours," he tried to put skepticism into his voice, "say that it can give its wielder the power of life and death."

"Rumours are often unfounded," Balkov said. He gave a little chuckle. "But you can stop devouring mine with your eyes if you want." He took his wand from a fancy holder on the desk and held it out to Kai.

Kai stared at it for a long disbelieving second before taking it. He held it and swished it once or twice. Dismissed it instantly, but held it for a second or two longer out of some weird pretense at politeness before handing it back. Mild affinity. Not really even worth registering.

"You know what you're looking for, then."

Kai shrugged. "I'll know it when I hold it." He was putting on the most emotionless face that he could muster. In reality, his skin was clammy, his heart was pounding and he was losing awareness of what was around him in a way that only usually happened when he woke suddenly at night.

"And why is that?"

From somewhere very far away, Kai heard his voice say, "Because I've held it before."

Balkov sat right back in his chair. He was grinning now, triumphantly. "Will you join me, Kai, if I let you hold it again?"

"What?"

Balkov opened a drawer in his desk. In a different universe where something else entirely was happening, Kai would have been rolling his eyes at the dramatic delivery, but somehow there was enough tension in this room to choke on and he didn't know why he suddenly trusted Balkov to be telling the truth but he did.

Out came the wand.

The fact that he couldn't immediately identify the wood was a good start. The fact that the he eventually worked out the wood was elder was better. Ancient legends and rumours aside, he'd never held an elder wand before. It was the rarest wand wood.

His hand closed around it.

Something inside him split open like rotten fruit and came blazing up through his chest, screaming a bloody warsong.

 _Yes_.

Distantly, he felt a hand on his arm. "So you'll join me, then?"

Even more distantly he looked back at Balkov's eager face. What was an afterschool club, in comparison to this?

"I will _destroy_ your fucking duelling club." He stroked the wand carefully with his free hand. He didn't quite seem able to let go of it.

Balkov laughed and laughed.

* * *

All opinions welcome!

xIlbx


	25. Chapter 25

It is way too late at night. I only have 1042 words left before I win and hit 30k, but I have a hen do tomorrow, hence why I bashed this out even though it's REALLY LATE. and shit.

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They first heard about it during sixth year. It popped up from time to time in the _Daily Prophet_ , which Ray and Hilary both got delivered every morning. A new school for witches and wizards. It was a novelty, but not an innovation: new independent schools popped up quite often, according to the _Prophet_. None of them had lasted longer than the seven year span of one cohort yet in the United Kingdom.

The _Prophet_ hypothesised that this was due to the reputation, tradition and routine of Hogwarts. Many parents would never dream of sending their children anywhere else. They were sceptical of the capabilities of a school which wasn't Hogwarts. When assured that all of its teachers had been to one or another of the great magical schools worldwide, these parents generally expressed their bewilderment that those teachers hadn't been sensible stayed there. "Why don't they just open a new building in Hogwarts?" one irate middle aged witch was quoted as saying.

Yes, the general view of new schools was that they were either massive cons set up to collect money and ruin the children, or that they were an idealistic dream of perfection that was doomed to fail. After reading reports like these in the news day after day, Ray and Hilary, and anyone else who leafed through their copies of the paper, could be forgiven for putting it completely to the back of their minds to get lost somewhere in the cobwebs. After all, they had started their NEWTs now. They had important things to focus on.

It took Kai a long time before he too saw an article about this new school. Nearly three months. In his defense, he didn't read the newspaper on principle. His grandfather was a majority shareholder. He knew how much of it was lies and propaganda. Eventually, though, months later, he happened to be staring blankly at the table as his brain whirred fruitlessly away at an essay, and what his gaze was resting numbly on was that page in the Prophet.

"CLASH OF THE HEADMASTERS?" screamed the title. Kai didn't find out what the main body of the report was about. He didn't need to.

He'd just seen the name.

The British Educational Gathering of Arcane_. Headmaster: Boris Balkov.

That night, Kai didn't sleep. He did try. It wasn't a good idea.

After several days of trying to sleuth around himself, Kai gave in and gritted his teeth and went to his grandfather. If anyone would know, surely it was him.

"Well?" he asked, kneeling in the Gryffindor common room fireplace with his head in the Floo fire at three o'clock in the morning. His grandfather looked the same as ever despite the hour. He wasn't even dressed for bed. When Kai was much younger he had often wondered if the man was actually a vampire.

"None of my business." His grandfather shrugged and brushed off his robes in a gesture that looked so casual that it must be planned. Everything that man did was planned. "I'd heard of the school, of course, long before the Prophet got their desperate little fingers on it, but no, Balkov hasn't approached me for funding or advice in any capacity." He frowned. "That does surprise me, I must admit." Kai's mind boggled. It must be the late hour. Grandfather never admitted ignorance. "I wasn't aware Boris had the business acumen to pull off something of this scale."

"Of this scale?" Kai repeated. Damn, he knew that he should have read the article more closely … He could feel his grandfather's eyes on him, could see the smirk without needing to look. The old man touched the Floo fire and the room began to dissolve.

"Do try to be in possession of all of the facts before you come to me again, boy." His voice drifted, ghostlike, through the closing connection.

"Hey Hilary," Kai asked the following morning at breakfast, "can I have a look at that when you're done?" He nodded at the Prophet. Hilary looked surprised. Before she could reply, Tyson had loudly pointed out that he always read Hilary's newspaper after her, and Max had made a joking comment about wanting to make a paper hat out of it.

They still acted like children. For a long second Kai wanted to shout at them all, to scare them half as badly as he was scared. But he squashed the impulse. It wasn't their fault. They didn't know a quarter of what Balkov had done when he was at Hogwarts in second year. He should let them have their fun, and their time of being unafraid. While they could.

Anyway, Ray had slid his copy across the table after taking out the puzzles at the back. So Kai read, and found out a little more.

The school, which was persistently referred to by the acronym BEGA, didn't have a large student body yet, but it was growing at an astounding rate. The school boasted a sleek new building, filled with top quality brand new magical technology "straight from the Ministry itself". It took students from ten, rather than eleven, and kept them until they had passed the exit exams.

But most importantly, it offered scholarships. Not the piddly little hardship fund that Hogwarts offered – Kai knew from Ray how little that money really stretched to – but an all-expenses paid free ride. Wands, school supplies, travel to and from school for the holidays, school trips, monthly pocket money … everything.

That explained their sudden pupil number explosion, then. People did love a free ride. Despite all the warning signs still blaring in his head, Kai relaxed slightly. He was certain that the popularity would wear off once a few months had gone by and parents had had the time to interrogate their children about their studies. There was no chance in hell that BEGA's standard of education was higher than at Hogwarts, with its thousand years of experience.

So he too let the issue fade to the back of his mind. It never grew cobwebs – waking abruptly every couple of nights dreaming of elder keeps related memories quite fresh, thank you – but it faded.

That is, until seventh year started. They all sat down for the Sorting. The line of tiny terrified first years trooped ten of them.

To say conversations broke out in the Hall was an understatement. The huge room roared with shock and speculation. An icy rock lodged itself in Kai's gut.

"They've gone to BEGA," he said under his breath to Ray on his let.

"They aren't the only ones," Max said from his right side. "Look." He nodded towards the section of the table which had been occupied last year by the fifth years. This year's sixth years. There were less of them than before.

"They're going to BEGA for their NEWTs." Kai's head spun. Suddenly he wished that he'd paid a lot more attention last year. "We need to do something, guys."

* * *

All opinions welcome!

xIlbx


	26. Chapter 26

I have written 30k! So happy! I will add one or two chapters more to this I think, just to show you guys how the BEGA characters fit into it, but they will take a while. I have a life to get back to!

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The workload for seventh year was intense. Even Julia and Tyson had finally started doing their homework on the night they were given it. Hilary and Kenny were already constructing revision schedules for everyone. (Revision schedules. In the _first week_.)

Tyson was provisionally still Quidditch captain, but he'd promised Hilary, his Head of House and his grandfather that if he was too stretched by Christmas he would give it up. There was a loud fourth year with a short attention span called Daichi who'd been nagging Tyson to step down since the end of fifth year. He was by far the best Beater on the team, but everyone who spent more than five seconds in his presence wasn't sure if he was ready for strategies and long-term decision making yet.

Max had been entered into the prestigious Wizarding Schools Potions Championship, and as a result hadn't seen daylight except from out a window for the week of term so far and would probably go sunless for the rest of the year as he frantically prepared and invented and practised.

Mathilda and Ray were seriously struggling with seventh year levels subjects. Ray was just drowning in Defence Against the Dark Arts, which they had all kind of expected and Tyson had already had one argument with him about, but Mathilda was in trouble over everything. She'd completely lost confidence after only passing sixth year Transfiguration thanks to the combined efforts of her entire dorm, and now she spent most nights crying about how she was going to fail all her NEWTS and confirm everybody's disappointment in her.

So one part of Kai could understand why literally no-one else in his year seemed to understand how important it was that they research what the hell Boris and BEGA were up to. But the rest of him was frustrated and angry. Their excuses of being too busy were pathetic. He was doing more NEWTs than anyone apart from Hilary and turning up to Quidditch practise three times a week just like Tyson and Hilary. (Hilary had tried to drop out in sixth year but she was still the best Chaser any of them had ever seen so Tyson had bargained, bribed and pleaded to keep her.) He was even still going to Duelling Club, even though only Julia and the teacher could spar usefully with him. He'd got told off for that the other day. He'd given Julia a ten minute nosebleed when their hexes had collided, and in return the teacher had given him a lecture which basically boiled down to, "We're not actually trying to hurt each other here, Kai," and taken ten points from Gryffindor.

He'd gritted his teeth and managed not to retort. It wasn't the points that galled him. He barely noticed them these days – this was his last year, what did he care about the House Cup now? No, the problem was that _no-one was seeing the danger_.

Just because everything seemed fine with this school, other than it temporarily stealing some Hogwarts students, didn't mean everything was fine. It couldn't mean everything was fine. There was literally no way that Kai could imagine that Boris would ever have a neutral, safe agenda.

So on top of NEWTs, Quidditch and duelling, he was spending every free second that didn't need to be spent on food or sleep (and he could do without those quite well, actually) in the library looking up new spells, and in empty classrooms or quiet corners of the grounds practising them. As well as combative spells, he also looked up Charms. Tyson's creativity had taught him that you didn't have to use a charm exactly how you'd been taught it, or for the same ends. He'd briefly looked into unfamiliar Potions, but that had been at the end of a seventy hour period of being awake and he'd gone irrationally paranoid about poisoning for a day or two afterwards as a result.

At that point, Ray had put him in a Body-Bind, dragged him to bed and told him, '"I don't care how shitty Balkov is, you're going to hurt yourself." Kai had stubbornly stayed awake until Ray had stormed out of the dorm, but then he made the mistake of drinking from the glass of water next to his bed and only remembered Max's skills as sleep had dragged him under.

After that, his entire dorm, and the girls, conspired to make sure that he got at least four hours sleep and at least two meals a day. He'd spent probably a week in a frenzy of bitterness that only stopped when Tyson had sadly said that Kai was behaving like he had been in first year, and Julia had kicked his wand out of his hand in duelling and told him to stop being scared of accepting help.

One morning at the end of the third week of term, the situation changed in several ways.

Firstly Professor Dickenson stood up and briefly announced that the first year textbooks would now be changed. He mentioned one title as an example. Because Kai had been reading every scrap of information about BEGA that he could find, he immediately recognised the author's name as a member of staff at BEGA.

"That's a BEGA textbook!" he said through his teeth. Hilary, who was sat next to him today, frowned.

"I'll have to pick up a copy at next Hogsmeade weekend. See what they're being taught."

Kai wanted to bang his head on the table in frustration. "Or we could sneak out and get a copy tonight. Or at lunch."

Hilary gave him a dubious, appraising look. Kai waved a hand at her.

"Whatever. Forget it." He scooped up her copy of the _Prophet_ and opened it with an admittedly but unashamedly petulant snap.

And then the second game-changer happened.

The front cover was another BEGA piece. This on proclaimed the wonders of BEGA and continued its recent campaign of subtly insulting Hogwarts. Nothing unusual there. But that was all just narrative guff around the real piece:

BEGA was holding a competition. A magical tournament. It started in two months time, and lasted until a victor was found. It was open to everyone under eighteen: BEGA students, Hogwarts students, teenagers who had never received a Hogwarts letter. Anyone. It even said that Squibs were welcome to attend and to take place in the theoretical knowledge tests.

Right, Kai thought. I'm going to BEGA.

* * *

All opinions welcome!

Thank you to everyone who read this, and thank you very much indeed to those who reviewed.

xIlbx


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